Va. hotel revenues dropped by 50% last week

Hampton Roads tops U.S. hospitality industry, but could face deterioration due to new restrictions

Published July 29, 2020 by Sydney Lake

Hotel revenues last week continued to decrease by 50%, compared with the same week last year, according to new data from STR Inc., a division of CoStar Group providing market data on the U.S. hospitality industry. Last week, STR had reported that the U.S. hospitality industry had marked its worst quarter yet.

Nationally, however, the Norfolk/Virginia Beach area continues to have the highest occupancy rate and revenue per available room among the top 25 markets in the nation, reaching a 66.1% occupancy level (and 63.8% for the past four weeks), according to STR data. Its revenue per available room (RevPAR, a key lodging industry metric) last week reached $78.39, and $76.72 for the past four weeks.

“However, given that we will have more restrictions in Hampton Roads due to rising infection cases, effective July 31, and that travelers from Virginia arriving in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut must self-quarantine for 14 days, effective July 22, we are more likely to see deterioration in the performance of hotels in the next few weeks,”  Professor Vinod Agarwal of Old Dominion University’s Dragas Center for Economic Analysis and Policy, said in a statement.

During the week of July 19 through July 25, hotel revenues in Virginia decreased by 50% and rooms sold declined by 38% when compared to the same week last year. The average daily rate (ADR) paid for hotel rooms dropped 20% to $95.89, and RevPAR fell to $47.17, a 49% decline.

Hotel revenues and rooms sold declined in every major market in Virginia, compared with the same time frame last year. Compared to the same week in 2019, revenues fell 71% in Northern Virginia, 61% in Charlottesville and 31% in Hampton Roads. During the week of July 12 through July 18 revenues fell 72% in Northern Virginia, 60% in Charlottesville and 32% in Hampton Roads.

The number of rooms sold in Northern Virginia are down by more than 50%, while the Charlottesville market held on at 49% and the Chesapeake/Suffolk market declined by only 10%.

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