STR Weekly Insights: 3-9 August 2025

Analysis by Chris Klauda, M. Brian Riley, Isaac Collazo

All financial figures in U.S. dollar constant currency. 

Highlights

• RevPAR down in 42% of U.S. markets in four of the past six weeks 
• Last year’s Hurricane Debby made for easy comps in the Southeast
• Top 25 Markets down more than national average
• San Francisco remains a bright spot
• Global RevPAR growth continues minus the drag from Olympics comp

RevPAR slows even when removing muddy performance comps

U.S. hotel industry performance was down for the week ending 9 August. Revenue per available room (RevPAR) dipped 1.6% on falling occupancy (-0.7 percentage points) and ADR (-0.6%). 

Muddying the results were 1) the continued negative influence from Houston and Las Vegas as well as 2) the impact of last year’s Hurricane Debby, which impacted select southeast U.S. markets and created gains for those markets this year. 

Houston remained a significant drag on the Top 25 Market results due to difficult comps from last year’s storms. Additionally, Las Vegas continues to hamper the Top 25 average with multiple factors affecting the market. These two markets combine to account for 14% of rooms in the Top 25 and 5% of the total U.S. However, even when excluding these two markets, the decrease in the Top 25 Markets (-2.5%) was nearly double that of the remainder of the U.S.

Hurricane Debby made landfall in the matching week last year in the Big Bend region of Florida with a second landfall in South Carolina, driving away demand in several southeast markets including Augusta, Charleston, Columbia, Fort Myers, Georgia South, Jacksonville, Myrtle Beach, Tampa Bay, Savannah and South Carolina Area. This year, these markets saw demand return to normal, resulting in double-digit RevPAR growth. 

Excluding the Debby markets, U.S. RevPAR would still be down, but less so (-1.1%)—that’s true even if you exclude Houston and Las Vegas (-0.2%).

Outlier markets lifted lower chain scales while dampening Luxury  

Luxury has been the only chain scale to show consistent gains this entire summer, but RevPAR slowed in the most recent week (-0.1%). As with prior reported weeks, bifurcation continued with RevPAR becoming progressively worse in the lower chain scales, with Economy down 5.7%. 

When removing hurricane Debby markets, as well as Houston and Las Vegas, Luxury RevPAR came in at -1.3%, but Economy hotels were less negative at -3.4%. Midscale and Upper Midscale improved by just under a percentage point while Upscale and Upper Upscale were relatively unchanged. 

Fifth consecutive week of group demand decline, most pronounced in the T25 

Luxury and Upper Upscale hotel group demand declined for the fifth consecutive week, falling 6.2% in the most recent period. Group demand in the Top 25 Markets was down 9.6%. 

Even when excluding Las Vegas and Houston, Group demand was down. Non-Top 25 markets also declined (-1.2%) but less so than the larger markets. Group ADR remained healthy for both the T25 (+3.4%) and non-T25 (+2.1%). In contrast, Transient demand among Luxury-Upper Upscale hotels has been positive most weeks this summer, with 1.9% more rooms sold in the most recent week while ADR dipped 0.8%. 

Top 25 Markets varied with storm impacts evident

Among the Top 25, San Francisco continued to see strong RevPAR growth, up 22.2%. In the prior week, the market was up 33.2%. Both weeks were lifted by the World Transplant Congress. So far this year, San Franciso has posted 23 weeks of RevPAR gains (of 32 total), the most within Top 25 Markets. 

Among other T25 leaders, Tampa Bay (+10.2%) and Miami (+8.9%) had favorable YoY storm comps. Dallas (+9.4%) and Detroit (+8.4%) rounded out the best within the Top 25.

On the negative performance side, Houston saw RevPAR retreat 36.4%. New Orleans has struggled to fill rooms all summer with recent occupancy at 49.1% compared to 60% a year ago. NOLA’s weekly RevPAR was down 20.3%. 

Las Vegas was down 18.9%. 

Olympic comp pulled down global growth

The Paris Summer Olympics took place last year from 26 July through 11 August. As expected, there was a major impact on global RevPAR comps because of the ADR premium last year. Global RevPAR has declined for the past three weeks, retreating 3.7% this week due entirely to France. The country saw a 61.7% RevPAR decline with ADR down 56.3% and occupancy falling 9.8ppts. 

Excluding France, global RevPAR rose 5.6% and has been positive for the past three weeks. In fact, it has been positive for all but three weeks this year. ADR has been the primary driver, increasing 5.5% YTD and 5.6% in the most recent week. Occupancy declined 0.5 ppts this week and is down 0.4ppts YTD.

Japan, Canada and Spain all delivered top RevPAR gains this week following several weeks on top. China RevPAR was down as it has been for the past 13 weeks.

Looking ahead

Continuing RevPAR deficits remain a concern in the U.S. as summer wraps up. The Top 25 Markets have been hit especially hard even after controlling for atypical comparisons such as storm impacts. 

Inflation and operational expenses continue to rise substantially faster than room revenues, which is creating declining profit margins. In the coming weeks and months, we will continue to see challenging year-over-year storm comps. All eyes will be on the fall conference and meeting season after a lackluster Group performance this summer. 

Globally, RevPAR has continued to grow (excluding France), and, while slowing, does not appear to be at risk of going negative anytime soon.