Va. hotel revenues remain down

As the lodging industry struggles to bounce back from the economic crisis brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, Virginia hotel revenues for the week ending June 20 dropped by 65% compared with the same period in 2019, according to new data from STR Inc., a division of CoStar Group providing market data on the hospitality industry.

For the same time period, rooms sold decreased by 49%, the average daily rate (ADR) paid for hotel rooms dropped 31% to $85.69, and revenue per available room (RevPAR), a key lodging industry metric, fell to $35.78, a 63% decline.

Hotel revenues and rooms sold declined in every major market in Virginia, compared with the same time frame last year. Compared to the same week in 2019, revenues fell 81% in Northern Virginia, 66% in Charlottesville and 49% in Hampton Roads. During the week of June 6-13, revenues fell 81% in the Northern Virginia market, 71% in Charlottesville and 47% in Hampton Roads.

Within the Hampton Roads market, hotel revenue fell 85% in Williamsburg, 43% in Virginia Beach and 41% in Norfolk/Portsmouth and Newport News/Hampton, and 37% in Chesapeake/Suffolk.

“We did not see as much improvement in room revenues or in rooms sold this week as we have seen for the last few weeks,” said Professor Vinod Agarwal of Old Dominion University’s Dragas Center for Economic Analysis and Policy. “We should brace ourselves for a continued slow rebound as the nation and the commonwealth largely reopens from COVID-19, however. It will take time for business and leisure travelers to fill rooms again.”