Inside weekly US data: The worst week on record

The week ending 21 March brought some new lows in U.S. hotel performance, and it's likely the industry hasn't yet reached the bottom. 

Record lows for weekly U.S. and Canada hotel performance are not likely to be records for long, according to STR analysts.

U.S. hotel revenue per available room dropped 69.5% during the week of 15-21 March—the third-consecutive double-digit weekly RevPAR decline. Jan Freitag, SVP of Lodging Insights at STR, said on a data webinar Thursday the RevPAR decrease was significant for all of the wrong reasons. (STR is the parent company of Hotel News Now.)

"That is the steepest weekly RevPAR decline we've ever recorded in our 30-year history," Freitag said. "Unfortunately, we fully expect that this data could get even worse next week as travel into the U.S. and North America overall dwindles even further."