As expected, based on history, US hotel revenue per available room (RevPAR) fell 1.8% during the week of Jan. 18 to 24 due to the MLK holiday, but the decrease was much larger than anticipated because of Winter Storm Fern.

The impact of the storm could be seen clearly over the weekend days Friday and Saturday, when RevPAR was down 6.2% on falling occupancy. Over the remaining days of the week from Sunday to Thursday, US hotels saw flat RevPAR, which was better than in the same MLK Week of the previous two years. The post-MLK weekend, however, was the worst since 2018, excluding 2020.

While hotel demand was down on the weekend, average daily rate (ADR) was up 0.6% despite the 3.9-percentage-point occupancy decrease. Weekdays, where occupancy increased 0.9 percentage points, saw ADR fall 1.6%, the largest MLK Week decrease since 2009, excluding 2020. Overall, ADR for the entire week was down 1%, with occupancy falling 0.5 percentage points via flattish year-over-year demand (down 0.2%).

Weekday performance was led by hotels in non-Top 25 and non-hurricane hotel markets, where RevPAR gained 6.7%. That group included Salt Lake City, San Antonio and Mobile, Alabama, where RevPAR growth exceeded 30%. In total, 47 of the 135 markets in that category saw double-digit RevPAR growth this week.

The Top 25 US hotel markets saw RevPAR fall 2.8% during the weekdays due to a 59.6% fall in Washington, DC because of difficult comps to last year’s Presidential inauguration. Excluding Washington, DC, Top 25 weekday RevPAR was up 4.9%, resulting in a total US weekday RevPAR gain of 3.2%.