By Jim Rozell , Founder and CEO
Summer 2019 is winding down. The litany of annual hotel summer sales is dwindling, and a view of the future rate landscape is taking shape for the end of summer booking lull.
Overall rate growth is about zero. As we look forward 120 days from today, on average the published rates look about 1.0% higher than last year. If you plan to travel in the next few months, you can expect to pay on average about $152.26 per night for your stay. That’s a touch cheaper than you paid over the summer, but about the same as you paid last year.
As with any good analysis, the devil is in the details, so here are a few breakdowns of what is looking good and what is not looking so good.
Service Class Comparison
Luxury Hotel rooms continue to pace the rate growth with a near 4% increase over last year. Full-service hotels, which are about 11% of the sample, have a solid improvement of a 2.6% increase.
Regional Comparison
Across the US, the 1% increase isn’t a given. In fact, the rate growth across the US is largely carried by one quarter of the country. West Coast hotels sport a 3.5% growth year over year, driven by a 4+% growth in the Mountain region. Hotels in the Midwest are down across the board and the Mid-Atlantic and West South-Central regions lag everyone with a near 1-point decline in year/year-average rate.
The West South-Central rates are strong (albeit with only a few hotels) in the Luxury category, but every other category is down relative to the US average. This region is a stronghold for Expanded/Limited/Basic service properties (91.8% of all rooms) and none are performing particularly well as we move forward.
Major Brands Review
Finally, a quick look at the top brands in the US. There are a few disturbing numbers in this list. However, we are not the type to pass judgment or call out performance from potential new clients, so we will allow the graphic below to speak for itself.
Moving Forward
Next month we plan on diving into some major city rate trends, along with our Service Class/Regional/Brand reviews. Towards the end of the year, we will be providing a 2020 rate growth forecast free of charge!
If you want a greater dive into the data shown above, contact us at [email protected]. I’m sure we can provide you the ability to slice and dice your way to analysis paralysis.
Take care and have a great month.
Interested in knowing how we calculate growth rates? read The Methodology from our first blog Hotel Compete: Future Industry Published Rate Trends