Hotel Occupancy Rates Increase

There is some good news for the hotel industry in the United States. Data released by the STR for the second quarter of 2013 shows that the occupancy rates are going up. These figures are of year-over-year measurements. The good news is that the occupancy rate is up in all three key performance metrics.

It was revealed that the occupancy rate has gone up by an impressive 1.3%. It currently stands at 65.9%. The daily average rate has gone up by 3.6% to $110.47. The revenue for each available room has increased by 5% and reached $72.78.

Bobby Bowers, who is the senior Vice President (Operations) at STR (http://www.str.com/), says that the lodging industry in the US has recorded RevPAR growth in 13 consecutive quarters. In the second quarter, the RevPAR has increased by 5%. He feels that this growth has been mainly because of ADR. Incidentally, the occupancy rate of 65.9% is the max for the second quarter since 2007. That’s quite a rebound. But it’s not just a standalone thing. The result seems to be consistent because the RevPAR went up by 5.6% in the first quarter as well. Better first quarter results and now this one shows that it’s not just a one-time swing. STR expects that the full year RevPAR growth for 2013 will be close to the first half performances.

A look at the top 25 performing markets will tell you that the best occupancy increase was seen in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota-Wisconsin. It went up by 6.1% to reach 71.5%. Next was Houston, Texas, where there was a 4.9% increase to 71.8%. There were, however, a few instances of the occupancy rate going down as well. For instance, it went down by 5.1% to 59.7% in Norfolk-Virginia Beach, Virginia. This was the biggest decrease.

In ADR, the best performance was in Oahu Island, where it went up by an impressive 13.9% to $201.34. This was followed by San Francisco/San Mateo, California, where the growth was 10.3% to stand at $183.05. The ADR hasn’t gone down in any of the top markets this quarter.

There has been double-digit RevPAR growth in four markets. They are San Francisco/San Mateo (growth of 15% to $159.30), Oahu Island (14.2% to $165.04), Houston (12.5% to $75.11), and Minneapolis-St. Paul (10.0% to $73.50). On the other hand, Norfolk-Virginia Beach has gone down by 3.2% to $54.94, and Washington, D.C., has gone down by 2.1% to $117.29. There have been no other RevPAR decreases.