Onondaga County hotel occupancy jumps more than 39 percent

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Onondaga County hotels again saw a substantial rise in guests in September compared to a year ago as the hospitality industry continued to rebound from the pandemic, according to a recent report.

The hotel-occupancy rate (rooms sold as a percentage of rooms available) in the county jumped 39.3 percent to 60.6 percent in September from the year-prior month, according to STR, a Tennessee–based hotel market data and analytics company. It was the seventh consecutive month of large increases in occupancy, each greater than 39 percent. These are the first seven months in which the year-over-year comparisons were to a month affected negatively by the COVID crisis. The last year of monthly reports before that showed significant declines in occupancy as the comparisons were to a pre-pandemic month.

Revenue per available room (RevPar), a key industry gauge that measures how much money hotels are bringing in per available room, nearly doubled (up 92.6 percent) to $68.92 in Onondaga County this September from a year before.

Average daily rate (or ADR), which represents the average rental rate for a sold room, increased 38.2 percent to $113.71 in September compared to September 2020.