Hotels in North America continue to enjoy growth, although they don't have groups to thank for it, according to hotel consultancy TravelClick, which today published data from its March 2015 TravelClick North American Hospitality Review. Hotels report strong rates, TravelClick says, but decelerating group sales.
"We're finally moving out of the doldrums of winter into the spring but the cold weather has had an adverse effect as group sales pace has continued to decelerate from the strong gains sustained throughout most of 2014," TravelClick Senior Industry Analyst John Hach said in a statement. "The cold weather and slowdown in group [sales] means hoteliers need to carefully monitor their local market group pace, especially going into the second quarter of 2015. The prolonged deceleration of group demand has the potential to adversely impact RevPAR later this year."
Group segment occupancy is 0.9 percent ahead of the same period last year, according to TravelClick, while group average daily rate (ADR) is up 3.7 percent. This compares to 1.1 percent and 4.5 percent growth, respectively, for overall occupancy and ADR.
"Looking at Q1, although committed occupancy shows only a slight increase, the majority of markets saw an increase in the pace of bookings," Hach continued. "This indicated that those markets affected by this year's uncharacteristically harsh winter are beginning to see positive growth."
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