After a harsh winter, New York’s competitive tourism and hospitality sectors may finally be around the corner.
According to the latest STR data, the city’s hotels were 50.4% occupancy for the week of March 21st. This was one of the highest weekly averages since the end of June last year. The week before, on Saturday, March 20th, the occupancy had risen to 65.4%.
But there is one important caveat. Even if the data for March 21-27 is far from the average occupancy rate of 83.8% for the comparable week in 2019 – and a seemingly huge jump of 14.2% for the comparable week in 2020 Beginning of the pandemic – The numbers are calculated from a greatly reduced inventory base.
“There’s definitely light at the end of the tunnel,” said Jan Freitag, STR senior vice president of accommodations. “Not just from looking at the occupancy data of New York City, but also from a macro perspective in relation to [Covid vaccine] Shots are fired every day, GDP growth revised upwards and unemployment lowered. All of these bode well for travel in general, and New York City in particular. “
However, Freitag admitted: “We have this little wrinkle because many rooms in the city are still closed.” STR estimates that around 30% of all space in New York remains offline.
Taking into account these temporary room closures due to the pandemic, STR reports that total room inventory occupancy in New York for the week of March 14 was a sobering 32.2%.
Vijay Dandapani
“There are 226 hotels that are temporarily or permanently closed,” said Vijay Dandapani, president and CEO of the Hotel Association of New York City. “About 30 hotels are believed to have closed permanently, and 139 hotels are now entirely dedicated to homeless shelters. So you have about 400 of the 700 pre-Covid hotels that are now out of the mix inventory is really skewed.”
As the city’s open land occupancy increases, some hotels that have been closed for a long time are starting up again. Last in Manhattan Mandarin Oriental New York and Park Hyatt New York both reopened on April 1st.
Demand is starting to rise at Manhattan hotels like the Lotte New York Palace, especially with summer bookings.
Rest for eating, attractions
In addition to improving hotel metrics, pedestrian traffic is beginning to grow at various tourist hotspots in the city.
According to the Times Square Alliance, the number of pedestrians in Times Square over the weekend of April 2-4 rose to a 2021 high of about 150,000 people per day, compared to a previous average of around 100,000 daily visitors since September 2020. (The Times Square) Alliance uses 24/7 automated pedestrian counting cameras that track people entering and walking through county boundaries to collect their data.)
“We’re starting to see green shoots of recovery,” said Chris Heywood, executive vice president of global communications for NYC & Company.
Heywood attributed some of the spring’s optimism to the easing of New York state’s travel restrictions, with domestic travelers no longer having to be quarantined when entering New York from another state or U.S. territory from April 1.
“That’s a cornerstone of New York City,” Heywood said. “We hope to attract more visitors and our focus in the short term is on getting the local visitors back, who make up 80% of our visitor volume in any given year.”
Other tailwinds for the city’s comeback include the recent expansion of indoor dining capacity to 50% and the reopening of various attractions and experiences across the city, as well as an expected restart for Broadway in the fall.
Becky Hubbard
Becky Hubbard, executive director of the Lotte New York Palace and a member of the Steering Committee for the Coalition for NYC Hospitality & Tourism Recovery confirmed that demand is gradually picking up.
“People are very curious about what the city is like right now,” said Hubbard. “We’ve seen a slight increase in our occupancy over the past few weeks. And we’re also seeing people book for July and August through the end of summer.”
Dandapani said many of the city’s still-closed hotels are aiming to reopen in June, July and August, with the hope that the market will be on more solid ground by the summer.
“I remain very optimistic that New York will make a comeback,” added Dandapani. “In such a small geographical concentration, the scope and breadth of cultural experiences and other attractions that one gets are simply not reproducible in other parts of the country.”
