State of the global hospitality industry seems to be staying robust in the last week of March, with both the occupancy levels as well as average daily rates staying comfortably higher than the same period a year ago, says hotel industry analysis firm STR.

The latest weekly report by STR, a leading hospitality industry analysis firm, says that March concluded with an uptick in weekly U.S. hotel occupancy, which reached the second highest level of the year of 66.2 pc, up 2.2 percentage points (ppts) from a year ago, but 1.3 percentage points below the year-to-date (YTD) high achieved two weeks ago.

STR adds that the Average Daily Rate (ADR) of USD 158 matched last week’s level and like occupancy, it was the second highest of the year so far. More importantly, ADR increased 7.3 pc year over year (YoY), marginally more than the inflation rate of 6 pc. It says that Revenue Per Available Room (RevPAR) was USD 105, about 10.9 pc YoY and 14 pc higher than the levels in the same week in 2019.

It goes on to say that the performance of hotels in the top cities in the United States in terms of occupancy and ADR generally followed the same pattern as the US overall, with occupancy increasing to 72.8 pc from 72.3 pc a week ago. Compared to last year, occupancy was up 4 percentage points in terms of YoY, its largest gain of the past three weeks. STR adds that it should be noted that the occupancy level for the top 25 markets has been above 72 pc for the past four weeks, which is its longest streak at that level since October.

Weekly ADR in these key markets grew 9.0 pc YoY, its second week below double-digit growth as easy Omicron comparisons fade away, but the growth rate was still higher than the rate of inflation. With strong increases in both occupancy and ADR, RevPAR jumped 15.4 pc, a pace that was nearly double the growth seen a week ago.

STR says that except Atlanta and Miami, all other top 25 markets saw year-over-year growth in weekday room demand. The largest contributors were Las Vegas and Washington DC, which saw its highest weekday occupancy of 83 pc since the start of the pandemic. The market also had its highest weekly occupancy of 78.8 pc courtesy of the annual National Cherry Blossom Festival. This year’s weekly occupancy was the 10th highest since 2000. In comparison, the 2019 level for the same week ranked 9th at 79.9 pc.

The STR analysis adds that the global occupancy outside the US declined slightly this week to 64.9 pc, down 0.9 percentage points from last week but 13 percentage points ahead of last year. This week’s occupancy was the 14th highest since the start of the pandemic. Weekly ADR rose 20.5 pc YoY to USD 134. With strong results in both occupancy and ADR, RevPAR increased by 50.8 pc YoY to USD 87. RevPAR has grown by 50 pc or more every week this year, except one, for the week ending March 25. In addition, both ADR and RevPAR attained their highest levels of the past 12 weeks.

STR says that among the top 10 countries based on supply, occupancy was up sharply, a growth of 17.4 percentage points YoY, led by China (+31.5) and followed by Italy, Germany, and Japan where occupancy gains were in the mid-teens year over year. However, Indonesia saw a noticeable decrease of 8.4 percentage points YoY, due to the second week of Ramadan. All 10 countries saw YoY ADR growth led by Japan, where ADR jumped more than 106 pc YoY, which led to a 158 pc YoY gain in RevPAR. China also saw very strong RevPAR growth, up 151 pc YoY. Collectively, weekly RevPAR in the top countries was up 62.7 pc YoY.

Globally, weekly occupancy was the highest in the Bahamas at 80.5 pc, followed by Ireland, clocking in at 79.6 pc and Jamaica close behind at 79.5 pc. Fifteen of the 103 countries tracked weekly reported occupancy above 70 pc this week, which was less than the 27 that did so a week ago, says STR.