Business and leisure travelers boosted occupancy and prices at Boston area hotels in September.
Greater Boston’s hotels reported strong operating results for September as leisure and business travelers filled the region’s hotels.
Thomas Grillo
Real Estate Editor- Boston Business Journal
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Greater Boston’s hotels reported strong operating results for September amid a strong uptick in international and business travelers, according to a new report by PKF Consulting.
Among the 93 hotel operators included in the “PKF Trends in the Hotel Industry” analysis for the Boston area had an average 83.4 percent occupancy rate (up 1.9 percent year-over-year) and a $212 average daily rate (up 7 percent) in September. Those two metrics combined to increase average revenue per available room (RevPAR) to $177, a 9 percent increase.
“A combination of international and business travelers in September drove rates and occupancy up,” said Patrick Moscaritolo, CEO and president of the Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau. “The national trends and forecast for the second half of 2013 were spot on when they said business travel is making a comeback, but will be led by leisure travel.”
In September, three submarkets experienced increases in occupancy: Back Bay, Cambridge, and Route 128, while the Downtown as well as the Route 495 North and South submarkets suffered from year-over-year declines in occupancy.
Among the six submarkets analyzed, each achieved healthy ADR gains of at least 2.2 percent and as high as 8.1 percent. As a result, five markets posted RevPAR increases. Cambridge’s 13.6 percent increase marked the largest change in RevPAR. The Route 495 South submarket, the worst performer of the lot, experienced a RevPAR decrease of 0.7 percent, mostly due to its occupancy decline.
September’s occupancy rate was the month’s highest since 2011, while its ADR and RevPAR rates were the month’s highest on record since 2008.
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