More hotels are monetizing the mountain of daily requests for early check-ins and late checkouts with fees for extra hours in the room.
More hotels are monetizing the mountain of daily requests for early check-ins and late checkouts with fees for extra hours in the room.
For 2023, growth in revenue per available room was lowered by 0.5 percentage point, due to a 0.6 percentage point downgrade in occupancy growth. While that RevPAR growth remains above the long-term historical average, most of the increase was frontloaded to the early portion of the year. For 2024, the RevPAR growth projection was also lowered 0.5 percentage point on a 0.5 percentage point downgrade in occupancy. Average daily rate was upgraded 0.1 percentage points for 2023 but kept flat for 2024.
Hotel rates in the top 25 U.S. markets were up 9.3% year-to-date through May from the same period a year earlier.
Hotel and resort managers say requests for connecting rooms and suites have increased recently as multigenerational families and large groups of friends gather. Some hotels have reported a more than 20% increase in demand for these types of rooms.
San Francisco hotels are still struggling badly in both occupancy and room rates compared with before the pandemic. Revenue per available room was nearly 23% lower in April compared with the same month in 2019. The city’s lodging business has been squeezed by crime and other quality-of-life issues that have kept many convention bookers away. Tech companies’ embrace of remote work also undercuts business travel to the city and hotel activity.
Blackstone Real Estate Investment Trust is selling the 1,000-room JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort and Spa for $800 million in a deal that is being called the second-biggest hotel transaction since the pandemic and a major bet on the convention and leisure industry. The hotel is being bought by Nashville, Tennessee-based Ryman Hospitality Properties Inc.
Extended stay hotels remain an enduring bright spot for a hospitality industry that was rocked by the pandemic. These properties had an occupancy rate of 74.7% last year, significantly higher than overall hotel occupancy in the U.S., which reached 62.6% in 2022.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics published the latest average hourly earnings of employees in the accommodation sector and the preliminary average March wage stood at $23.33, the highest amount on record. The change from a year ago was an increase of just over 6%.
Hotel asset managers surveyed with 64.6% of respondents ranking wage increases as one of the factors they are most concerned about, followed by 57.3% who are worried about labor availability and 52.4% concerned about demand.