STR: China hotels show slight Lunar New Year lift

Mainland China's hotel industry performance showed improvement from last year's pandemic-affected Lunar New Year period, but still fell well short in comparison with 2019 levels, according to preliminary data from STR.

"Although this year's celebrations felt a bit different with fireworks banned in many cities, some Lunar New Year's traditions were still in place," said Christine Liu, STR's regional manager for North Asia. "However, recent outbreaks and travel restrictions softened hotel performance for the festival period. Performance has been largely tied to the success of virus containment efforts."

Daily occupancy in the market sat in the 30% range for most of the festival period (11 February-17 February) then rose to as high as 37.6% on Saturday, 20 February.

A forecast for China's continued recovery will be among the insights shared during the upcoming Hotel Data Conference: Global Edition. The event, which kicks off in the Asia Pacific region, will be held virtually on 25 March with 12 straight hours of live, data-driven presentations and panels. Registration is available here.

All of STR's COVID-19 analysis can be found here.