The latest hotel industry analysis

Analysis by Jesper Palmqvist, Senior Director – Asia Pacific

There is plenty of time remaining in 2023, but Singapore’s hotel bookings are already increasing rapidly for 2024 with the market set to host several major events early in the year. Utilizing Forward STAR data, we took a quick look at the specific impact for Singapore’s hotels from Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour”, Coldplay and the global Rotary Convention.

Okay, hotels, “now let’s get in formation”, because major concert tours seem to be boosting performance all around the world. In May and June 2023, the stage was Europe for Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour, which featured 19 shows across 14 European cities. Let’s just say that the hotel industry is likely “crazy in love” after the impact Beyoncé had on the region.

Regardless of how the hotel industry benchmarks performance, the end goal is always maximum profitability. Like all other elements of industry benchmarking, there are data sets and reports designed specifically to measure the success of that goal.

Performance benchmarking is paramount in the hospitality industry, and whether measuring success against yourself, the competition or a specific segment of the market, the process involves foundational historical metrics. 

U.S. hotel weekly occupancy slipped a bit in the most recent week of reporting (27 February-5 March 2022), falling to 61.2% from 62.2% the week prior. While all attention is focused on rising gas prices and the potential impact on hotel demand, this week’s decrease was due to a weaker Sunday as the previous Sunday benefited from the Presidents’ Day holiday.

STR’s latest 28-day visuals show markets collectively getting closer to their seasonal performance expectations. The leaders and laggards are highlighted in the “bubble” charts below with averages covering the four weeks ending 12 February.

STR’s final 51-chart map of the year shows recent national/regional trends and many states finishing 2021 strong. Further, trend lines for revenue per available room (RevPAR) on a total-room-inventory (TRI) basis provide ample evidence of the hotel industry’s extraordinary rebound, particularly in the second half of the year. 

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.

These summaries include the following: