U.S. hotels market posts 101 consecutive months of YOY RevPAR growth in July

The U.S. hotel industry reported mixed results in the three key performance metrics during July 2018, according to data from STR. In a year-over-year comparison with July 2017, the industry posted the following:

• Occupancy: -0.2 percent to 73.6 percent
• Average daily rate (ADR): +2.0 percent to $133.44
• Revenue per available room (RevPAR): +1.8 percent to $98.17

U.S. hotels have now posted 101 consecutive months of year-over-year RevPAR growth.

“The heart of the summer vacation season helped the industry establish an all-time record in demand, which topped 120 million room nights sold for the first time in history,” said Jan Freitag, STR’s senior vice president of lodging insights. “However, there was enough supply growth [+2.1 percent] to outpace the year-over-year increase in demand [+1.9 percent], and that led to the first monthly occupancy decrease in the United States since last July. That, combined with just a 2 percent lift in ADR, produced our lowest RevPAR increase since April 2017. We expect the industry to continue breaking demand records through 2019.”

Houston reported the largest jump in RevPAR (+12.3 percent to $61.26), thanks in part to the second-highest rise in occupancy (+5.0 percent to 61.8 percent).

Phoenix registered the only other double-digit increase in RevPAR (+10.2 percent to $51.96), driven primarily by the highest increase in occupancy (+6.6 percent to 60.1 percent). San Francisco/San Mateo posted the largest lift in ADR (+9.0 percent to $256.50). Overall, 18 of the Top 25 markets reported RevPAR growth. Washington, D.C.-Maryland-Virginia, registered the steepest declines in ADR (–2.6 percent to $139.95) and RevPAR (–4.8 percent to $108.10). Miami/Hialeah experienced the largest decrease in occupancy (–5.2 percent to 76.3 percent). St. Louis, Missouri-Illinois, saw the second-largest decreases in occupancy (–3.6 percent to 71.3 percent) and RevPAR (–3.5 percent to $77.13).

For 2019, STR predicts the U.S. hotel industry to report a 0.2 percent increase in occupancy to 66.4 percent, a 2.4 percent lift in ADR to $132.97 and a 2.6 percent rise in RevPAR to $88.29.