Last September was a relatively softer month for hotels. But this September is seeing broadly higher travel demand than the past couple of years.
"We definitely see strength in the pacing for September," said Adrian de Gortari, EVP of revenue strategy at Remington Hospitality, referring to booking data he sees as a third-party manager of more than 110 hotels.
Many hotel executives hope to beat a sluggish historical pattern. Last September, U.S. hotels had an average revenue per available room (RevPAR) of $163, unchanged from a year earlier, according to CoStar.
In the U.S., flight searches for domestic September trips were up 12% year-over-year between January 14 and July 14, according to Kayak.
"People usually book their flights ahead of hotels," de Gortari said. His team is adjusting room rates and sales and marketing to get ahead of demand.
In Europe, September hotel reservations were up 4.8% year-over-year as of July 10, based on data from more than 25,000 hotels across nine major countries using SiteMinder's systems.
The trend is broadly global. Skyscanner logged a 9% year-over-year jump in global searches for September flight departures over July 1-18. Intent to fly to South Korea, Egypt, Taiwan, Indonesia, and France each climbed by double-digit percentages.
It's not just hotels. U.S. short-term rental demand for September is pacing up by double-digit percentages, as of July 21, according to AirDNA. In the top 10 markets, 190,000 more nights are already on the books than at the same point last year.
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