Oneida County hotel occupancy rises more than 21 percent in October

UTICA, N.Y. — Oneida County’s hotels welcomed more guests in October compared to a year ago as they continued to rebound from the pandemic.

The county’s hotel-occupancy rate (rooms sold as a percentage of rooms available) jumped 21.5 percent to 63.1 percent in October from the year-prior month. That’s according to a recent report from STR, a Tennessee–based hotel market data and analytics company. Year to date, occupancy was up 32.3 percent to 56.5 percent.

Revenue per available room (RevPar), a key industry gauge that measures how much money hotels are bringing in per available room, rocketed 56.8 percent higher to $81.07 in this year’s 10th month, compared to October 2020. RevPar was up 49.2 percent year to date to $66.68.

Average daily rate (or ADR), which represents the average rental rate for a sold room, rose 29.1 percent to $128.41 in Oneida County this October. Through the first 10 months of the year, ADR was up nearly 13 percent to $118.07.

The positive October 2021 hotel-occupancy report marks the eighth straight month of significant increases in occupancy in the Mohawk Valley’s most-populated county, compared to the year-ago month — however, this was the smallest increase of the eight. These are the first eight months in which the year-over-year comparisons were to a month affected significantly by the COVID crisis. The last year of monthly reports before that showed substantial declines in occupancy as the comparisons were to a pre-pandemic month.