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The U.S. hotel industry reported negative results in the three key performance metrics during October 2019, according to data from STR. In a year-over-year comparison with October 2018, the industry posted the following:

  • Occupancy: -0.8% to 69.3%
  • Average daily rate (ADR): -0.5% to US$133.34
  • Revenue per available room (RevPAR): -1.2% to US$92.35

“The industry had not reported consecutive months of RevPAR decreases since December 2009 and January 2010,” said Carter Wilson, STR’s senior VP of consulting and analytics. “We considered the three previous sub-0.5% monthly declines in this record-setting expansion cycle as blips. With October’s RevPAR decrease of 1.2%, there’s more evidence for a pronounced slowdown on the horizon. As noted in our revised forecast, we’re projecting RevPAR increases below 1% for 2019 and 2020. The industry has not been below 2.9% growth for a year since the recession.

“With October specifically, group occupancy was down 8.6%. That’s in large part because of the Jewish holiday calendar shift from September in 2018. With slower demand growth and the industry’s first supply increase of at least 2.1% since April 2010, there was obvious pressure on occupancy levels and already fragile pricing confidence.”

Among the Top 25 Markets, Anaheim/Santa Ana, California, registered the largest jump in RevPAR (+6.1% to US$138.20).

Washington, D.C.-Maryland-Virginia, posted the largest lift in ADR (+5.5% to US$184.27), which resulted in the second-largest increase in RevPAR (+5.2% to US$142.95).

Houston, Texas, experienced the highest rise in occupancy (+5.3% to 68.0%).

Boston, Massachusetts, saw the steepest decline in RevPAR (-11.8% to US$191.12), mostly because of the largest drop in occupancy (-7.1% to 83.1%).

New Orleans, Louisiana, reported the steepest decrease in ADR (-5.7% to US$161.23) and the only other double-digit decline in RevPAR (-10.4% to US$118.65).

Overall, the Top 25 Markets (RevPAR: -2.4%) in aggregate have underperformed all other markets (RevPAR: -0.4%) in 12 of the past 13 months.