As the U.S. hotel industry begins to crawl out of the COVID-19 pandemic valley, a look over the shoulders of hotel owners reveals recent improvements in performance. In the second week of March, the occupancy rate reached its highest level in a year.

Occupancy for the week of March 13th was 52.1 percent, down from 49 percent of the first week of March and only 1.4 percent compared to the same period last year, which marked the beginning of the pandemic. The ADR was $ 102.62, down from $ 98.30 per week, a 14.5 percent decrease from last year. RevPAR was $ 53.45 from $ 48.13 the previous week, down 15.8 percent year over year.

“The year-over-year percentage changes are now more favorable as comparisons have shifted to pandemic weeks from 2020 onwards. Compared to 2019, the US has regained between 70 and 75 percent of occupancy in recent weeks,” said STR. “Florida, which was boosted by the spring break and Bike Week, was the strongest place in weekly occupancy increases. Among all the STR-defined markets, Daytona Beach is; Gatlinburg, Tennessee; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; San Antonio, Texas; Greensboro, North Carolina; and the Florida panhandle saw double-digit growth from the previous week, driven by another reopening across the country. All but seven states saw week-to-week increases, and six states saw their occupancy increase by more than 5 percentage points. “

STR’s top 25 markets combined still showed slightly lower occupancy than the national average at 49.8 percent, while the ADR was above average at $ 109.06. Tampa, Florida had the highest occupancy of the top markets at 72.7 percent, and Boston and Minneapolis had the lowest at 33.6 percent and 33.9 percent, respectively.