Va. hotel revenues decline while U.S. has worst quarter on record

Revenues still down by more than 50% when compared to last year

Published July 22, 2020 by Sydney Lake

Hotel revenues remained low but steady in Virginia last week, 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, which STR reported just marked its worst quarter yet.

“Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. hotel industry reported its worst quarter on record during Q2 2020,” STR said in a statement. “The absolute occupancy and RevPAR levels were the lowest for any quarter in STR’s U.S. database. The year-over-year declines in the each of the three key performance metrics were the worst for any quarter on record.”

During the week of July 12 through July 18, hotel revenues in Virginia decreased by 51% and rooms sold declined by 39% when compared to the same week last year. The average daily rate (ADR) paid for hotel rooms dropped 20% to $96.08, and revenue per available room (RevPAR), a key lodging industry metric, fell to $46.88, a 50% 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 72% in Northern Virginia, 60% in Charlottesville and 34% in Hampton Roads. During the week of July 5 through July 11 revenues fell 70% in Northern Virginia, 65% in Charlottesville and 34% in Hampton Roads.

Nationally, however, the Norfolk/Virginia Beach area had the highest occupancy rate and revenue per available room among the top 25 market in the U.S., reaching a 64.5% occupancy level, according to STR data. 

“We continue to see improvement in room revenues as well as in rooms sold in Hampton Roads almost every week over the last several weeks,” Professor Vinod Agarwal of Old Dominion University’s Dragas Center for Economic Analysis and Policy, said in a statement. “We should brace ourselves for a continued slow rebound as the nation and the commonwealth largely has reopened from COVID-19, however. It will take time for business and leisure travelers to fill rooms again.”

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