US hoteliers may take four years to restore rates
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Major US hotel operators may need up to four years to restore room rates to 2008 levels after slashing prices to spur demand, hospitality research firm, PKF, has said. According to a Bloomberg report, citing statistics from Smith Travel Research (STR), revenue per available room (revPAR) in the US dropped 9.8% in May from a year earlier to US$97, and is down 8.5% since 1 January this year. And PKF’s President, Mark Woodworth, said there was no sign of a quick recovery.
“We don’t see national average room rates getting back to 2008 levels until sometime in 2012 or even 2013,” Woodworth was reported saying. “There were rate declines in 2001 and 2002, but until this year that was the only other time that happened in this industry in some 20 plus years.”
Hoteliers also may face the lowest average annual occupancy level this year in 20 years of records, Woodworth said. Occupancies are likely to average at 55.5% compared with a record high of 64.8% in 1995.
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