Hotel Occupancy Up
I was looking at the chart of the Hospitality Properties Trust stock (HPT) and a link ‘5 things to know: 8 March 2012’ drew my attention so I had to click on it due to my (un)healthy curiosity.
And some interesting things (they did not say what ADR and RevPAR meant as they assumed people who came to this page already knew, after all the site is www.hotelnewsnow.com, so I had to look up these terms):
ADR = Average daily rate
RevPAR = Revenue per available room
The U.S. hotel industry’s occupancy was up 2.3% to 59.9%, ADR increased 3.5% to $102.77 and RevPAR was up 5.8% to $61.56. Among the top 25 markets, Denver reported the only double-digit occupancy increase, up 10% to 65% and San Francisco/San Mateo achieved the largest ADR (14.5% to $166.70) and RevPAR (18.3% to $126.21) increases.
In year-over-year measurements, the Canadian hotel industry’s occupancy ended the week with a 4.1% increase to 57.6%, its average daily rate rose 2.6% to 126.07 Canadian dollars and its revenue per available room was up 6.8% to CA$72.67.
It is interesting that ADR in Canada is higher than ADR in USA, CAD126.07 vs. USD102.77 (the currencies have been close to par for the past year), I suppose because of less competition due to a much smaller market (one tenth I would say).
“Business travel has been the primary driver of occupancy growth over the past two years, but it is good to see the leisure segment picking up the pace. Strong demand across group, transient business, and now transient leisure will offer hotels a lot of opportunity to make choices that maximize revenue production”
So good news after all, we are out of recession, especially with the leisure segment increasing as well; people must feel more secure with their jobs.
Also, from Best Western’s recent business travel survey:
• 9% of travelers believe experiencing new food and restaurants is the most enjoyable or rewarding part of a business trip. I am not among the 9%.
• High-speed Internet is the most important hotel amenity with 71% of travelers saying it is most important, followed by breakfast (51%). Yes, both of them for me.
• Almost 40% of those surveyed belong to three or more travel loyalty programs. Yes, Marriott, Fairmont, Carlson and Aeroplan.
Information from:
Group Demand Driving Improved Occupancy; Higher Transient Prices Driving Improvement of Average Daily Rate
5 things to know: 8 March 2012