Hoteliers across the United States are planning their next steps following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling Thursday that largely upheld health-care reform.
The Court, by a 5-4 margin, on Thursday upheld President Obama’s health-care mandate as a tax. HotelNewsNow.com reached out to several hotel industry officials after the ruling came down for their reactions to the Court’s decision.
Marlene Colucci, executive VP of public policy for the American Hotel & Lodging Association, said the group’s next steps now fall mainly along two tracks:
- Continue to work on implementation of the reform, and react to other regulations that might come about; and
- monitor the debate surrounding the measure to see if there are other proposals or alternatives that will benefit members of the AH&LA.
“I think we’re going to have to learn to live with the law now like a lot of other things we have to learn to live with,” said Bharat Patel, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Sun Development & Management Corporation.
Average daily rates for hotel stays have increased in a majority of business destinations, continuing a reversal of previous trends, according to Egencia’s “2012 Global Corporate Travel Benchmarking Study and Travel Manager Research.”
Improved occupancy and a decreasing amount of new hotel supply coming into the market has led to slightly higher room prices (approximately 6% in North America, 3.3% in Europe and 5.7% in the Asia/Pacific region).
In Europe, markets that showed solid rate increases include Stockholm (up 9.2%), Dublin (6.5%) and Marseille, France (6.3%). Dublin continues to rebound from the massive price declines during the recession, with 2011 growth continuing into 2012. Stockholm also leads in terms of overall ADR growth; rates continue to rise even though occupancy levels there are flat.
ADRs in Asia/Pacific destinations generally increased, especially in Jakarta (up 23.6%), Seoul (15.4%) and Hong Kong (12.4%). For the top business markets (Singapore/Hong Kong), limited supply will continue to fuel ADR increases.
STR, parent company of HotelNewsNow.com, released its weekly U.S. and Canada data for the week of 17-23 June.
U.S.: In year-over-year comparisons for the week, occupancy ended the week virtually flat with a 0.9% increase to 72.2%, ADR increased 4.1% to $107.04 and revenue per available room rose 5.1% to $77.28.
Canada: In year-over-year measurements, the country’s occupancy ended the week with a 2.4% increase to 72.3%, its ADR was up 1.2% to 134.21 Canadian dollars and its RevPAR reported a 3.7% increase to CA$96.98.
A survey conducted by uSamp on behalf of Smith Micro Software identified an increased demand for mobile services among 700 U.S. travelers who use smartphones and tablets.
Highlights from the survey include:
- Guests prefer to access Pay-Per-View and video content via mobile devices when staying at a hotel, with 67% of respondents citing they are more likely to purchase content that can be accessed via a smartphone or tablet.
- Almost 75% of travelers said they were likely to book a hotel if it offered services and video accessible from a mobile device.
- More than 72% of those surveyed were interested in accessing some form of hotel video content from their mobile device.
- Eighty-eight percent said they were likely to access mobile video available as part of a hotel’s Wi-Fi plan. Of those not interested in accessing video from their mobile device, one-third of respondents cited concerns about data charges.
View the full report.
The U.S. hotel industry has hit several significant performance milestones in the past two months, according to a HotelNewsNow.com article written by STR’s Steve Hood.
The first: Twelve-month ADR percent change has surpassed the 12-month occupancy percent change for two months in a row. The last time the ADR percent change was higher than the occupancy percent change was in December 2009. And the last time that happened while both numbers were positive was in December 2006.
The next significant milestone is related to group ADR. For the last two months the group ADR for 2012 surpassed the group ADR for 2007 as well as all other years except for the record year of 2008.
One last milestone to point out is related to overall ADR 12-month moving average. The previous peak was at $107.71 in September 2008. Over the next 19 months, the ADR dropped nearly $11 to $97 in April 2010. Rates slowly have been regaining ground, and in May 2012 the 12-month moving average reached $103.38. If you “do the math,” that is very close to three-fifths of the way back to the original peak in a 24-month time period. If you continue to do the math, we could estimate that based upon the current progress, ADRs would make it back to the prior peak in another 14 or 15 months, or by the end of next summer 2013.
Compiled by Stephanie Wharton.
