Report: Just one out of six Jefferson County hotel rooms were occupied in April

WATERTOWN — As the coronavirus crisis ravaged the travel and hospitality industry, hotels in Jefferson County saw a massive drop in guests in the month, according to a recent report.  The hotel occupancy rate (rooms sold as a percentage of rooms available) in the county plunged 63.6 percent to 16.8 percent in April, according to […]

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WATERTOWN — As the coronavirus crisis ravaged the travel and hospitality industry, hotels in Jefferson County saw a massive drop in guests in the month, according to a recent report. 

The hotel occupancy rate (rooms sold as a percentage of rooms available) in the county plunged 63.6 percent to 16.8 percent in April, according to STR, a Tennessee–based hotel market data and analytics company. April’s fall was worse than the nearly 35 percent decline in occupancy in March to 24.7 percent, likely because the COVID-19 crisis didn’t fully hit until the second half of March.

Jefferson County’s revenue per available room (RevPar), a key industry gauge that measures how much money hotels are bringing in per available room, nosedived 69.9 percent to $12.13 in April. That was worse than the nearly 39 percent fall in RevPar in March to $22.70.

Average daily rate (or ADR), which represents the average rental rate for a sold room, slipped 17.3 percent to $72.32 in April. That followed an almost 6 percent dip in ADR in March to $82.80.

Journal Staff: