Jefferson County hotel-occupancy rate rises 20 percent in September

WATERTOWN — Hotels in Jefferson County welcomed significantly more guests in September compared to the year-ago month, continuing the hospitality industry’s recovery from the pandemic, according to a recent report.

The hotel-occupancy rate (rooms sold as a percentage of rooms available) in the county increased 20.4 percent to 57.8 percent in September, according to STR, a Tennessee–based hotel market data and analytics company. Year to date, hotel occupancy was up nearly 39 percent to 51.4 percent.

Revenue per available room (RevPar), a key industry gauge that measures how much money hotels are bringing in per available room, jumped 41.2 percent to $63.76 in September compared to September 2020. Through the first nine months of this year, RevPar increased more than 56 percent to $53.70 versus the same period last year.

Average daily rate (or ADR), which represents the average rental rate for a sold room, rose 17.3 percent to $110.33 in September from the year-prior month. ADR was up almost 13 percent to $104.46, year to date through September.

This was the seventh-straight strong monthly hotel-occupancy report for Jefferson County, but the smallest increase of the seven. These are the first seven months in which the year-over-year comparisons were to a month affected significantly by the COVID crisis. The prior 12 reports each featured double-digit declines in occupancy as the comparisons were to a pre-pandemic month.