At Hotels, Thursday Is Now a Check-In Night
Dominance of Leisure Travelers Continues To Shift Hospitality Occupancy Trends
At the latest Americas Lodging Investment Summit, Stephanie Linnartz, president of Marriott International, noted that hotel managers used to refer to Thursday as checkout night, the day of the week when business travelers typically returned home. But since 2021, she noted, that has changed. Now Thursday has become a check-in night, thanks to leisure travelers continuing to dominate hotel stays.
At the latest Americas Lodging Investment Summit, Stephanie Linnartz, president of Marriott International, noted that hotel managers used to refer to Thursday as checkout night, the day of the week when business travelers typically returned home. But since 2021, she noted, that has changed. Now Thursday has become a check-in night, thanks to leisure travelers continuing to dominate hotel stays.
Leisure travelers are embracing weekends, and often Thursday nights are when they check in. This in turn has led to slightly higher-than-expected occupancy on Thursday nights in U.S. hotels.
Traditionally, Thursday and Sunday nights were considered ”shoulder” days, occurring on either side of the high-occupancy days of Monday through Thursday when business travel was still active. The national average occupancy for Wednesday nights in 2021 was 12.6 percentage points below the 2019 results, pointing at the sharp deterioration of group and corporate demand, which continues to ail the hotel industry to this day.