Oneida County hotels see nearly 35 percent increase in occupancy in November

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

The county’s hotel-occupancy rate (rooms sold as a percentage of rooms available) jumped 34.6 percent to 50.1 percent in November 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 32.5 percent to 55.9 percent.

Revenue per available room (RevPar), a key industry gauge that measures how much money hotels are bringing in per available room, leaped 63.6 percent higher to $55.13 in this year’s 11th month, compared to November 2020. RevPar was up 50.3 percent year to date to $65.64.

Average daily rate (or ADR), which represents the average rental rate for a sold room, increased 21.5 percent to $109.98 in Oneida County this November. Through the first 11 months of the year, ADR was up 13.4 percent to $117.42.

The strong November 2021 hotel-occupancy report marks the ninth straight month of significant increases in occupancy in the Mohawk Valley’s most-populated county, compared to the year-ago month. These are the first nine months in which the year-over-year comparisons were to a month affected substantially by the COVID crisis. The last year of monthly reports before that showed large declines in occupancy as the comparisons were to a pre-pandemic month.