Onondaga County hotels see more than 30 percent gain in occupancy in January

SYRACUSE — Onondaga County hotels welcomed more guests in the first month of 2022 than they did in January 2021 as the travel and leisure business continued to bounce back, according to a new report.

The hotel-occupancy rate (rooms sold as a percentage of rooms available) in the county rose 30.4 percent to 40.5 percent this January from the year-prior month, according to STR, a Tennessee–based hotel market data and analytics company. It was the 11th consecutive month of big gains in occupancy, but the smallest increase in that time. These are the first 11 months in which the year-over-year comparisons were to a month incumbered 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. 

Revenue per available room (RevPar), a key industry gauge that measures how much money hotels are bringing in per available room, jumped 63.6 percent to $38.11 in Onondaga County in January from a year before. 

Average daily rate (or ADR), which represents the average rental rate for a sold room, climbed 25.4 percent to $94.19 in January compared to a year ago.