HOSPITALITY BRAND

 For the week ending August 15, the US hotel occupancy finally went above 50% for the first time since the pandemic began.  That being said, the occupancy rate of growth continued to trail that of China and Europe.  That is to say that China and Europe are recovering at a faster pace than the US--we are all on the same road to recovery, the US is just not hitting the accelerator as much.  

 The week ending August 1st, brought US Occupancy to 48.9%, according to STR, up 1.8% over the previous week. Here we see the occupancy by week. While this is quite an improvement from the 22% occupancy we saw back in April, the rate of growth is slowing.  Over the last five weeks, we have seen the rate of growth average 1.6%, which is much lower than the rate of growth we saw over the previous 2 months of 7.8%.  The chart below shows the occupancy change week to week, 15 out of the last 16 weeks have seen growth. This occupancy growth has been fueled by leisure demand, of concern is the looming end of the summer vacation period.  Chris Nassetta, Hilton's CEO, mentioned in their most recent earnings call that he expects Business/Corporate demand to offset the drop in Leisure as we enter the fall.  Suggesting that leisure demand is unlikely to continue at its current pace indefinately.