Jefferson County hotel-occupancy rate soars 43 percent in November

WATERTOWN, N.Y. — Hotels in Jefferson County saw an influx of guests in November 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 jumped 43.1 percent to 44.8 percent this November, according to STR, a Tennessee–based hotel market data and analytics company. Year to date, hotel occupancy was up more than 37 percent to 51.5 percent.

Revenue per available room (RevPar), a key industry gauge that measures how much money hotels are bringing in per available room, rocketed up 60.4 percent to $41.09 in November compared to a year prior. Through the first 11 months of the year, RevPar increased more than 55 percent to $53.40 compared to the same period last year.

Average daily rate (or ADR), which represents the average rental rate for a sold room, rose 12.1 percent to $91.67 in November from the same month in 2020. ADR was up more than 13 percent to $103.76, year to date through November of this year.

This was the ninth-straight strong monthly hotel-occupancy report for Jefferson County. These are the first nine months in which the year-over-year comparisons were to a month affected significantly by the COVID pandemic. The 12 reports before that each featured double-digit declines in occupancy as the comparisons were to a pre-pandemic month.