Industry Updates

The summer travel season, helped by growing vaccination rates around the world, allowed Caribbean hotels to pick up steam in their road to recovery.  

Following up on STR’s initial Hurricane Ida analysis from 10 September, a vast majority of hotels in the New Orleans MSA have reopened with improving occupancy levels, especially in the core city center/central business district. This high volume of reopenings was to be expected because most closures were due to short-term power outages rather than property damage. Remaining short-term temporary closures are mostly concentrated in submarkets outside of the city.

Almost two weeks after Hurricane Ida made landfall, the impact of the storm is becoming clearer. Reports show the latest death toll at more than 130 between the Gulf region and the Northeast, and officials in New Orleans are still advising evacuees to stay away from the affected areas due to continued power outages, road blockages, and disruptions in other essential services.

After the outbreak of the epidemic in Guangdong at the end of May, the occupancy rates of the two major cities in Guangdong—Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and other parts of the province—have fallen to the bottom. As the center of this epidemic, Guangzhou hotels have been more severely affected. With the implementation of anti-epidemic measures and accelerated vaccination, the Guangzhou epidemic has gradually improved in mid-June.

Tianjin, as an important regional hub and international port of the country, is the gateway to the opening up of the northern region. Since the beginning of 2021, as the epidemic prevention and control gradually stabilized, Tianjin hotel market performance rebounded significantly with occupancy rate and average room rate showing positive performance.

Beijing, Tianjin & Hebei Markets

Entering 2021, the occupancy rate of the entire Mainland China hotel market has recovered significantly as far back as mid-March. As a key business travel and seaside leisure resort market in the northern region, the pace of demand recovery in Qingdao’s hotel market basically keeps pace with the average value of Mainland China.

As Thailand battles a third wave of COVID-19, most markets were stuck at single-digit hotel occupancy over the final days of April, except for Pattaya and Bangkok.

Before that, areas such as Huahin/Cha Am and Pattaya, which are known as drive-to markets from Bangkok, showed expected and notable spikes on Saturdays ahead of Songkran.

Compared with its initial lockdown of 2020, Singapore continues to operate with lessened pandemic restrictions: face masks, F&B limitations, tracing, and little travel. There is hope the country will open further in Q3, as 25% of the population has received at least one dose of the vaccine. Continued, heavy financial support, particularly toward the travel and tourism sector, also adds optimism for an improved Q3.

One of Thailand’s most important celebrations each year, Songkran provided a modest impact on hotel performance during the festive period in 2021.

Spring Break 2021 didn’t just dive in, it made a cannonball-sized splash for Florida hotels and other U.S. destinations.