Six Months Into COVID-19: What Does The Data Say?
STR is monitoring several data sets that give a sense of how the global hotel industry is faring as the summer of 2020 nears its end.
HENDERSONVILLE, Tennessee - The 2020 Chinese New Year fell on 24-25 January, and just like every year, STR analysts expected a steep decline in demand as people stayed home and then a sharp uptick in leisure room demand for a week of vacation. However, it was not meant to be.
(STR is the parent company of Hotel News Now.)
Travel in China came to a halt, and as the COVID-19 virus spread around the world, air travel and room demand in Europe and the Americas cratered. Six months later, some countries that were locked down are reopening, but the pandemic is far from over as the case count in the U.S. shows increased velocity.
It is now clear that this pandemic will pass, and all eyes are on the so called "green shoots," in other words data points that hint at a better future. Well, maybe "better" is not right word; maybe we should say "less bad." Here are some of the data sets we are monitoring and sharing with our clients that give a sense of how the global hotel industry is faring as the summer of 2020 comes to a close.
Wheels of recovery are turning
STR analyst Robert Bauer created the following visual, which crams a lot of data into an elegant way of looking at the state of global hotel industry. It color-codes all submarkets in the world by occupancy range and shows four points in time.
