STR report: Onondaga County hotel occupancy rate plunges nearly 13 percent in April

Hotels in Onondaga County were significantly less full in April compared to a year ago, according to a recent report.

The hotel occupancy rate (rooms sold as a percentage of rooms available) in the county declined 12.9 percent to 56.8 percent in April from 65.2 percent in the year-ago month, according to STR, a Tennessee–based hotel market data and analytics company. Onondaga County’s occupancy rate has now declined in seven of the last nine months.

Revenue per available room (RevPar), a key industry gauge that measures how much money hotels are bringing in per available room, plummeted 16 percent to $55.06 this April from $65.56 in April 2016. RevPar in the county has also dropped in seven of the past nine months, per STR.

Average daily rate (or ADR), which represents the average rental rate for a sold room, slipped 3.6 percent to $96.89 in April from $100.49 a year earlier. However, ADR had edged up in each of the prior six months.

A factor that may be contributing to Syracuse’s slumping occupancy rate and RevPar statistics is the increase in supply of hotel rooms in the market in the last year with two key projects adding nearly 400 rooms, alone. That includes the opening of the 134-room Aloft Syracuse Inner Harbor hotel last July and the reopening of the former Hotel Syracuse as the 261-room Marriott Syracuse Downtown last August.