Analysis by Isaac Collazo, Chris Klauda
All financial figures in U.S. dollar constant currency.
Highlights
- Normal Memorial Day demand
- West South Central region underperformed the rest of the U.S.
- Weak weekend across all chain scales, even perennial front-runner Luxury
- Positive demand globally, China a big exception
The days following Memorial Day make for a transitional week with the start of summer break for some and the final days of the school calendar for others. A slightly later end to the school year in more districts this year as well as weak performance in the south resulted in U.S. revenue per available room (RevPAR) falling 1.9% for the week ending 31 May.
“Normal” Memorial Day followed by a lackluster weekend
Performance over the three-day Memorial Day weekend (Friday – Sunday) was not far off last year with RevPAR down 0.6% even as demand and ADR were up slightly. The difference between this year and last year is supply, which rose slightly more than demand, resulting in a drop in occupancy. Occupancy over the past three Memorial Day weekends has been above 72%, however, from 2014 to 2019, occupancy was above 75%. This year’s room demand for the full Memorial Day weekend was the fourth highest in history and just 148,000 room nights less than the 2019 record. Thus, we concluded that despite the increased uncertainty, this Memorial Day was “normal.”
RevPAR was up and down after the holiday with Wednesday seeing the only gain of the week (+1.2%). Thursday started a slide that went into the weekend, where RevPAR decreased 4.4% on nearly equal decreases in both occupancy and ADR. The weekend RevPAR decrease was the largest since Easter. We believe that a portion of the decline is due to the later end in a lot of school break calendars. Last year, nearly half of schools were out for the summer before the Memorial Day holiday. This year, 42% were out. That change is due to the midweek Christmas and New Year’s, which resulted in schools starting the spring semester a week later.
The south heavily impacted the national RevPAR comp
One surprise this week was the overall weak performance in the West South Central region of the U.S., specifically three of the four states (Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas). RevPAR in these three states declined 11.6% on average, impacted by the later summer break, weather issues, convention centers closed for renovation in Austin and Dallas, and conference shifts. Twelve of the 17 markets across the three states posted negative RevPAR comps with New Orleans, Dallas, Austin and the Arkansas Area reporting RevPAR declines of 20% or more. As whole, RevPAR in the West South Central region fell 10.3% during the week and accounted for nearly half of the total U.S. RevPAR decrease.