| March 31, 1999 - Occupancy for the month of February as
compared to February 1998 was flat at 61.2 percent while ADR was up 3.6
percent from its level of a year ago to $82.71. RevPAR
(a key industry productivity measure) was also up 3.6 percent for the month.
Helping keep the industry on a consistent course are signs of a slowdown
in supply growth, 3.8 percent for the month, its lowest monthly level since
late 1997. Room night demand also remained consistent at a strong 3.8 percent.
Occupancy for the twelve months ending February 1999 was down slightly
at .8 percent. Healthy increases in ADR and RevPAR, 4.1 percent and 3.2
percent respectively, continued over the twelve-month period. Supply growth
at 4.0 percent out paced a 3.1 percent increase in demand.
Occupancies in the Top 25 Markets remained strong. Over half
of the markets posted improvements from prior year levels. For those
markets with declines in February occupancy, consideration should be made
to the fact that Valentine's Day fell on a Sunday this year and on Saturday
in 1998. A twenty-point occupancy decline on that day (this year over last
year) was also due in part to the Saturday to Sunday shift of Valentine's
day with the ability to generate incremental demand on Saturday being greater
than that possible for Sunday.
Smith Travel Research -- the leader in lodging industry tracking and
analysis provides regular industry reporting to all major U.S.
chains, many independent hotels, and a variety of management companies
and hotel owners. The company also tracks lodging industry performance
in Canada and Mexico and has just launched a worldwide program to obtain
hotel performance data on a global basis with its alliance partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers. |
