The U.S. hotel market is showing a trend of strengthening weekday metrics compared to weekends in 2024. In Q1, weekday performance (specifically Monday through Wednesday) has outpaced weekend metrics across the U.S. hotel market. These changes in traveler behavior are likely a shift away from extended leisure weekends towards extended business/leisure or “bleisure” weekday trips, as well as a collective increase in flexible and hybrid or fully virtual work schedules.
The country is seeing this growth especially within the Top 25 U.S. markets, which includes Houston, according to a recent CoStar article. “The top 25 U.S. hotel markets increased RevPAR 1.6% via an ADR increase of 1% and an occupancy increase by 0.4 percentage points. The rest of the country saw a smaller RevPAR increase at 0.9%, which was lifted by a larger ADR increase of 1.7% but offset by an occupancy decline of 0.5 percentage points.”, says CoStar.
How does Houston compare?
These trends are creating a positive impact on the Houston market in 2024 – Houston is currently ranked 16th by occupancy in the Top 25 market rankings, up from 21st. The market also now ranks 20th by RevPAR, up from 25th in 2023. These upshifts in rank can in large part be attributed to growing weekday metrics. Taking a closer look at key performance indicators (KPIs), the Houston market saw major growth in the first quarter.
Houston started the year strong, showing a 4.2% year-over-year increase in weekday occupancy, a 16% gain in ADR and a 20.9% gain in RevPAR compared to 2023. The CBD, specifically, exemplified the national weekday trend, producing even stronger weekday metrics compared to the Houston market overall, with occupancy rates gaining 6.7% year-over-year, ADR increasing 29.2% to $254 (vs. an ADR of $232 on weekends) and RevPAR increasing 37.8% YOY to $136 (vs. $125 on weekends).
February continued to strengthen the weekday market, with occupancy tracking ahead of weekends by a 15-point margin. ADR showed significantly higher rates on weekdays at $250, a 5% YOY gain, vs. $188 on weekends. Though March saw weekends with higher KPIs than weekdays, it can be largely accredited to people moving out of the city for Spring Break. Despite this, the CBD still saw higher ADR and RevPAR on weekdays than weekends and steady YOY gains across all key metrics.
Written by Megan Henson
