New Reports Show an Increase in Hotel Demand

The COVID-19 pandemic has shuttered thousands of hotels and resorts around the world to travelers, with many making use of their space by housing first-responders and homeless individuals. However, according to PhocusWire, two recent hospitality industry reports show a small increase in hotel reservations around the world.

The first report comes from RateGain, which has been tracking room reservations and cancellations throughout the pandemic in over 20 countries around the world.

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RateGain’s second COVID-19 tracking report saw a near 60 percent increase in reservations in countries like Oman, Argentina and the Czech Republic, a 17 percent increase in the United States and a 5 percent increase in the United Kingdom, Thailand and Vietnam from April 12 to April 18.

“We considered all the bookings made during the week for any future date, to do this analysis. While the increase is not much as compared to the loss, an uptick gives us a direction to think,” the report states, which can be downloaded on RateGain’s website.

The second report was conducted by STR, which saw an increase in hotel occupancy to 26 percent in the United States from April 19 to April 25. The previous two weeks recorded occupancy at 23.4 percent and 21 percent.

Reservations in Europe have risen from 7 percent to 11.6 percent within the span of a few weeks, while occupancy in China has risen above 35 percent.

“Demand has grown slightly across the country during the last two weeks, which could provide some hope that the levels seen in early April were indeed the bottom—especially with some states now moving to ease social distancing guidance,” says Jan Freitag, STR’s senior vice president of lodging insights.

While Freitag is hopeful that April will be the lowest point for the industry, he notes that a majority of business has come from essential workers, homeless housing initiatives and government-contracted guests.