STR: US hotel performance for March 2018

By HNN Newswire

HENDERSONVILLE, Tennessee—The U.S. hotel industry reported positive results in the three key performance metrics during March 2018, according to data from STR.

In a year-over-year comparison with March 2017, the industry posted the following:
• Occupancy: +0.9% to 68.5%
• Average daily rate (ADR): +3.0% to US$131.56
• Revenue per available room (RevPAR): +3.9% to US$90.17

The increase in ADR was the largest for any month since January 2017.

“March was yet another month with record-breaking performance across the metrics,” said Jan Freitag, STR’s senior VP of lodging insights. “The year-over-year growth figures were especially noteworthy considering that the end of the month fell on the negative side of the Easter calendar shift—planners avoided the time around the holiday, and Group occupancy was down 4.9%. There is still an artificial demand lift in play in the hurricane-affected markets in Texas and Florida, but as we have seen, that impact on overall U.S. performance is lessening. When we parse through all of these performance factors, we see that growth is continuing at a healthy pace, and we are now at 97 consecutive months with a RevPAR increase.”

Among the Top 25 Markets, Miami/Hialeah, Florida, reported the largest increase in RevPAR (+18.2% to US$235.70), due primarily to the highest jump in ADR (+15.2% to US$268.22).

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-New Jersey, experienced the highest rise in occupancy (+9.7% to 73.5%), which pushed the second-largest increase in RevPAR (+14.3% to US$94.37).

Orlando, Florida, reported the second-largest lift in ADR (+9.2% to US$152.05) and the third-largest jump in RevPAR (+11.5% to US$135.69).

Overall, 18 of the Top 25 Markets reported RevPAR growth.

Detroit, Michigan, experienced the steepest declines in occupancy (-8.3% to 64.1%) and RevPAR (-8.4% to US$63.78).
Washington, D.C.-Maryland-Virginia, reported the second-largest decrease in RevPAR (-4.0% to US$129.79), due to the largest decrease in ADR (-5.2% to US$168.15).

St. Louis, Missouri-Illinois, posted the second-largest decline in ADR (-2.3% to US$99.94) and the third-largest drop in RevPAR (-3.9% to US$68.79).

“Better-than-expected demand continues to allow the Top 25 Markets to outgrow all other markets,” Freitag said. “And that growth of course comes with more supply coming online in the major markets. During this March specifically, markets like Miami, Orlando and Norfolk/Virginia Beach benefitted from school-break and family-vacation business.”

Download STR’s March U.S. hotel review here.