The definitive guide to calendar shifts and US RevPAR
Are the impacts of calendar shifts on RevPAR measurable or even predictable? U.S. hotel performance data from the past 19 years reveal trends.
Calendar shifts can have a significant impact on U.S. performance results.
Since an average year has an odd number of days, the number of weekdays shifts when comparing the same month year over year: A month that starts on a Friday and has five Saturdays one year will in the following year start on a Saturday and have five Sundays, and so forth. So, in effect this hypothetical month dropped a Friday and added a Sunday.
Since room demand is not equal across weekdays, this shift can impact monthly key performance indicators materially. In general, Wednesday and Saturdays are high-demand days as business and leisure travelers are on the road. In contrast, Sundays and Mondays are historically lower-demand days when compared to other weekdays. So, the shift in the calendar has varying impact depending on which weekday is added or subtracted from the monthly demand and revenue-per-available-room calculation.
The question we get often is if the impact of the calendar shift is measureable, and then—more importantly—predictable going forward? Looking back at the last 19 years of data, we feel that we can estimate the calendar-shift impact with some precision and estimate the demand and RevPAR impact on monthly performance results.
The following table shows the average positive and negative rooms revenue and RevPAR impact of the trade of a weekday as the calendar shifted, here shown as a combination of "gain and lose":
