The Fourth of July holiday has long served as a key indicator of leisure travel and lodging demand in the U.S. Amid ongoing macroeconomic pressures and weakening hotel performance metrics, this year’s holiday weekend faced heightened scrutiny. Fortunately, the holiday passed the test when it came to hotel demand.
Record-high July 4 room demand
For just the second time since daily reporting began in 2000, the U.S. hotel industry topped 4 million rooms sold on July 4.
At 4,092,239 room nights, this year topped 2014 (also a Friday) and 2015 (a Saturday) by more than 3,000-plus rooms.
Surrounding days healthy as well
Expanding to the full holiday week, demand (24.42m) was right in line with the past two years but lower than previous highs in 2019 (25.08m) and 2015 (26.64m). When looking at the weekend, demand was also the third highest among Fourth of July holidays that fell on a Friday or Saturday.
Occupancy not as impressive
This year’s holiday ranked a little lower when it came to occupancy, as supply growth in both the short- and long-term pushed levels down. For the full week, occupancy (61.1%) was lower than each of the last two years and well below the high in 2015 (68.2%). Among instances when the Fourth of July fell on a Friday or Saturday, occupancy (71.7%) ranked fifth.
Most segments grew demand but not occupancy
Compared with other Fourth of July holidays on Fridays and Saturdays, room demand was higher for all chain scales except Economy and Independent. Again, given supply growth, the story looks a little different when shifting the focus to occupancy as each scale came in lower.
ADR up for the holiday, down for the week
As expected with the holiday shift from Thursday last year to Friday this year, there were year-over-year fluctuations in average daily rate (ADR). Friday (4 July) came in at +3.4% whereas Thursday (3 July) was -7.8%. There were also smaller increases earlier in the week (Sunday-Tuesday), which tracks with our previous analysis of forward-looking occupancy, as a Friday holiday left more time to squeeze in business travel and groups. Overall, for the week, ADR was down 0.9%.
Continuation of recent trends
The week of the Fourth of July this year looked like the late-spring and early-summer periods thus far. Demand has remained steady, but occupancy sits lower due to supply growth. Rate growth is softening, and revenue per available room (RevPAR) remains flat to slightly down.
Lack of growth in the top line of courses creates more pressure on profitability. Recent months have shown that real growth remains stalled, highlighting persistent margin compression and operators still feeling the impact of higher operational expenses and inflation.
About CoStar Group, Inc.
CoStar Group (NASDAQ: CSGP) is a leading provider of online real estate marketplaces, information, and analytics in the property markets. Founded in 1987, CoStar Group conducts expansive, ongoing research to produce and maintain the largest and most comprehensive database of real estate information. CoStar is the global leader in commercial real estate information, analytics, and news, enabling clients to analyze, interpret and gain unmatched insight on property values, market conditions and availabilities. Apartments.com is the leading online marketplace for renters seeking great apartment homes, providing property managers and owners a proven platform for marketing their properties. LoopNet is the most heavily trafficked online commercial real estate marketplace with thirteen million average monthly global unique visitors. STR provides premium data benchmarking, analytics, and marketplace insights for the global hospitality industry. Ten-X offers a leading platform for conducting commercial real estate online auctions and negotiated bids. Homes.com is the fastest growing online residential marketplace that connects agents, buyers, and sellers. OnTheMarket is a leading residential property portal in the United Kingdom. BureauxLocaux is one of the largest specialized property portals for buying and leasing commercial real estate in France. Business Immo is France’s leading commercial real estate news service. Thomas Daily is Germany’s largest online data pool in the real estate industry. Belbex is the premier source of commercial space available to let and for sale in Spain. CoStar Group’s websites attracted over 163 million average monthly unique visitors in the third quarter of 2024. Headquartered in Washington, DC, CoStar Group maintains offices throughout the U.S., Europe, Canada, and Asia. From time to time, we plan to utilize our corporate website, CoStarGroup.com, as a channel of distribution for material company information. For more information, visit CoStarGroup.com.
This news release includes “forward-looking statements” including, without limitation, statements regarding CoStar’s expectations or beliefs regarding the future. These statements are based upon current beliefs and are subject to many risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements. The following factors, among others, could cause or contribute to such differences: the risk that future media events will not sustain an increase in future occupancy rates. More information about potential factors that could cause results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, those stated in CoStar’s filings from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including in CoStar’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023 and Forms 10-Q for the quarterly periods ended March 31, 2024, June 30, 2024, and September 30, 2023, each of which is filed with the SEC, including in the “Risk Factors” section of those filings, as well as CoStar’s other filings with the SEC available at the SEC’s website (www.sec.gov). All forward-looking statements are based on information available to CoStar on the date hereof, and CoStar assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
