US Hotel Performance Picks Up, but Slower Than Expected, After Thanksgiving

Demand for hotel rooms picked up again after the week of Thanksgiving, and the U.S. hotel industry sold the second-highest number of rooms on record for this week.

Still, weekly demand growth of 10% was below the expectations of STR, CoStar’s hospitality analytics firm, which is calling for demand to continue to rise ahead of the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.

For the week ending Dec. 3, occupancy increased to 55.4% from 50.3% in the week prior.

The high for most rooms sold in the post-Thanksgiving week was achieved in 2019, and this year’s level was 6% lower. In 2019, occupancy reached 60%, also a record, while this year’s occupancy ranked ninth overall.

The smaller-than-expected bump in weekly hotel demand was due in large part to less group business and the fact that business travel did not start in earnest after the holiday.

Compared to the same week in 2019, weekday (Monday to Wednesday) occupancy was down 8 percentage points, which is indicative of lower hotel demand from business travelers. It was the hotel industry’s worst weekday performance since the week of Halloween, as more than 80% of U.S. hotel markets recorded occupancy deficits, and that deficit was 10 percentage points or more in 29% of all markets.