U.S. hotel occupancy and revenue per available room once again were the highest reported for any month since February 2020, and the April 2021 average daily rate was the highest since March 2020, according to STR.
Occupancy was 57.7%, RevPAR was $63.46, and ADR was $110.34, according to STR. As it did with its March report, the company provided comparisons to 2019 data instead of year-over-year changes because of the Covid-19 pandemic's effect on last-year's data. Compared with April 2019, occupancy was off by 15.2%, RevPAR declined 28.8%, and ADR was down 16%.
Among the top 25 markets, Tampa had the highest April occupancy at 77%, just 0.5% shy of its April 2019 level. It was followed by Miami with 72%, down 11.2% from 2019. Miami also reported the highest ADR at $233.80, 6.9% higher than its April 2019 average rate, and the highest RevPAR at $168.31, down 5.1% from two years prior. Tampa was the only market to report RevPAR growth over its April 2019 level, at 0.5%.
Eight of the top 25 markets continued to report occupancy levels below 50%. Boston was the lowest at 40.4%, followed by Minneapolis at 42.5%.
Chain-scale metrics
Economy continued to lead all tiers in April 2021 occupancy at 62.7%, followed by upper-midscale at 62.3%. The upscale and midscale tiers each posted occupancies in the high 50% range, while luxury and upper-upscale followed with occupancy levels in the low 40% range. Still, luxury was the only tier to report ADR growth from April 2019, at 4.7% to $367.82.
Group metrics
The top 25 markets for groups -- covering only the luxury and upper-upscale classes -- continued to be challenged. Twenty-one of those 25 reported April 2021 group occupancy levels of less than 10%. The other four include Tampa at 11.8%, representing a decline of 51.5% from April 2019; Dallas at 11.3% (down 65.8%), Orlando at 10.3%, (down 73.1%) and Minneapolis at 10.2% (down 56.4%).
Source: Business Travel News