ROCKVILLE, MD—Kalibri Labs’ “U.S. Hotel Industry Performance Overview” reveals luxury and economy chain-scale hotels reported the best growth in occupancy for the month of September 2019, both up over 5% year-over-year. Other chain-scale segments reported flat or declining occupancy performance for the month, resulting in the total U.S. occupancy growing a nominal 1%.
The month of September also uncovered interesting results for two prominent markets. Hotels in both New York and San Francisco reported declining Guest Paid ADR, when compared to the same period last year. This is especially surprising given these markets had the highest occupancy of the top 10 markets (92% for NYC; 87% for San Francisco). September findings also revealed that bookings in New York and San Francisco also experienced the longest booking lead time (five weeks for both cities), which historically has been an indicator of pricing power.
Upon evaluation of Channel/Source of Business performance on a year-to-date (YTD) basis, the voice channel is now more than 7% of all room night bookings. This minimal amount of room night bookings through call centers is a continuation of its decline over the past several years.
“When looking at September YTD performance by property size, occupancy varies greatly,” said Mark Lomanno, partner & senior advisor, Kalibri Labs. “Generally, larger properties continue to report higher occupancies than their smaller counterparts.” The YTD performance illustrates that hotels with more than 140 rooms actualize average occupancies above 70%, while hotels with fewer than 60 rooms actualize an average occupancy of 55%.