STR: US hotel performance for January 2017

By  HNN Newswire

HENDERSONVILLE, Tennessee—The U.S. hotel industry opened the year with positive results in the three key performance metrics, according to data from STR.

In a year-over-year comparison with January 2016:
Occupancy: +0.5% to 54.1%
Average daily rate (ADR): +3.2% to US$120.72
Revenue per available room (RevPAR): +3.8% to US$65.33

January 2017 marked the industry’s 83rd consecutive month with a year-over-year increase in RevPAR.
“The 54.1% absolute occupancy level matched January 2015 as the highest on record for the month,” said Jan Freitag, STR’s senior VP of lodging insights. “But with 150,000 more rooms in the U.S., you can argue that this was the best January on record. At the same time, we still expect negative occupancy performance for 2017 due to an imbalance in supply and demand growth.”
Among the Top 25 Markets, Washington, D.C.-Maryland-Virginia, reported the month’s largest increase in RevPAR (+51.3% to US$96.52). Overall performance was driven primarily by a 38.3% spike in ADR to US$171.12, while occupancy in the market rose 9.4% to 56.4%.
“D.C. no doubt benefitted from the presidential inauguration, as the number of rooms sold in the central business district eclipsed any other inauguration day in our database,” Freitag said. “At the same time, we know that the Women’s March also had an impact on performance—it’s just not possible to quantify how much of an impact. If you remove D.C. from the month’s results, total U.S. RevPAR growth would fall more in line with forecasts.”

Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida, posted the only other double-digit lift in ADR (+12.5% to US$136.82) and the second largest rise in RevPAR (+15.3% to US$98.14).

Norfolk/Virginia Beach, Virginia, saw the only double-digit increase in occupancy (+12.0% to 42.4%), driving double-digit RevPAR growth (+14.7% to US$31.02) in the market.

Miami/Hialeah, Florida, reported the steepest declines in ADR (-9.3% to US$215.29) and RevPAR (-13.5% to US$165.80). Occupancy in the market fell 4.7% to 77.0%.

“Supply in the Miami market was more than 4% higher than last January, that certainly pressured occupancy levels and pricing power,” Freitag said.

Houston, Texas, experienced the largest decrease in occupancy (-6.4% to 55.8%).

Download the U.S. hotel review for January 2017.