Occupancy up for area hotels in November, report says

Occupancy and revenue figures were up for Orlando-area hotels in November, according to a report by STR, which monitors the hospitality industry.

The Central Florida market — defined as Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties — saw an occupancy rate of 77.6 percent for the month, an increase of 6.9 percent over the rate for November of 2016.

But revenue per room in Orlando surged 12.3 percent to $91.62 in November, up from $81.61 a year earlier. That was the third-highest advance among the nation’s top 25 markets, STR said, trailing Houston (up 40.1 percent) and San Francisco (up 17.5 percent).

“Much like October, performance for November was stronger than expected due to residual business in hurricane-affected areas in Texas and Florida,” said Jan Freitag, STR’s senior vice president of lodging analysis. “When removing those two states from the equation, we saw muted growth that fell more in line with our forecasts for the year.”

Nationwide, revenue per room was up 3.9 percent to $75.48 and the occupancy rate climbed 1.6 percent to the 61.5 percent level for November, which includes the Thanksgiving travel period.

“The top 25 markets significantly outperformed all other markets with the transient segment driving growth much more than group business,” Freitag said.

Seattle logged the largest occupancy drop for November, a decline of 2.4 percent to 69 percent occupancy.