Onondaga County hotel occupancy rate edges up in July

SYRACUSE — Hotels in Onondaga County welcomed slightly more guests in July than in the year-prior month, according to a recent report.

The hotel occupancy rate (rooms sold as a percentage of rooms available) in the county inched up 0.7 percent to 65 percent in July from 64.6 percent a year ago, according to STR, a Tennessee–based hotel market data and analytics company. That broke a string of nine consecutive months in which Onondaga County’s occupancy rate fell compared to the year-earlier period. Year to date, through July, hotel occupancy in the county was down 7.5 percent to 54.9 percent. 

The year-to-date numbers have been hurt by difficult year-over-year comparisons. Onondaga County last year hosted the U.S. Bowling Congress — at the Oncenter in Syracuse — from late March through early July. That pumped an estimated more than 40,000 hotel room night stays into the market. No similar event is taking place this year, making it hard to match last year’s hotel occupancy numbers. Part of July’s slight rebound in occupancy may be attributable to the fact the bowling event didn’t affect as much of July 2018 as it did the preceding months.

Revenue per available room (RevPar), a key industry gauge that measures how much money hotels are bringing in per available room, rose 0.5 percent to $66.78 in July from $66.47 in July 2018. Through the first seven months of 2019, the county’s RevPar fell 6.9 percent to $55.77.

Average daily rate (or ADR), which represents the average rental rate for a sold room, edged down 0.2 percent to $102.70 in July from $102.94 a year before. Year to date, Onondaga County’s ADR was up 0.6 percent to $101.56.