"We once again set records across the key performance metrics as strong demand growth (+2.8%) outpaced our largest year-over-year increase in supply (+2.1%) since April 2010.," said Jan Freitag, STR's senior VP of lodging insights.
STR concluded the US hotel industry has now posted year-on-year RevPAR growth for 107 of the past 108 months. The longest expansion cycle in the industry's history lasted 112 months from Dec-1991 to Mar-2001.
Among the top 25 US markets, 2019 Super Bowl host Atlanta posted the largest increase in ADR year-on-year of +28.6% to USD139.86, which drove the largest growth in RevPAR of +33% to USD98.04. San Francisco/San Mateo recorded the highest rise in occupancy of +4.1% to 79.9% and a +23.4% increase in RevPAR to USD258.01. Denver saw the third largest jump in RevPAR of +7.6% to USD79.79. Overall, 13 of the top 25 Markets saw RevPAR growth.
Things were a little different for hotels across the Central and South America region, which reported mixed performance results during Feb-2019, according to data from STR. Occupancy levels rose +2.9% to 59.5% versus Feb-2018, with ADR down -9.3% to USD96.49 and RevPAR falling -6.7% to USD57.38.
STR highlights Panama City among the standout markets where an +8.0% jump in demand was the largest for any month since Oct-2017. As a result, the absolute occupancy level was the highest for a February in Panama City since 2014.
Its data shows that occupancy increased +7.9% to 60.9%, ADR rose +3.4% to PAB98.47 and RevPAR was up +11.5% to PAB59.95. Oxford Economics expects international arrivals to grow +10.0% in Panama City this year.
Meanwhile, STR notes that a +6.1% rise in supply in the Peruvian capital, Lima, as the market prepares for the Pan American Games this summer, was mainly behind a -9.6% decline in occupancy to 55.9%. A -4.1% decline in demand also influenced the performance. These figures influenced a +1.5% growth in ADR to PEN421.39 and a -8.2% decline in RevPAR. Oxford Economics expects international arrivals into Lima to decrease -4.0% in 2019.