Europe Still Trails
As the U.S. shakes off its doldrums on the back of a wide distribution of vaccines, Europe is trying to do the same now, and the European Union’s decision to allow fully vaccinated Americans back in is a good first step.
March, however, was a month its hotel industry would soon like to forget. GOPPAR remained stuck in negative territory at €-8.45. Europe, in fact, hasn’t recorded positive GOPPAR since the anemic €0.81 it achieved in September 2020.
With overall occupancy still falling below 20%, rooms revenue continued to lag with RevPAR down 58% versus the same time a year ago. TRevPAR was similarly depressed, also down 58% versus the same time a year ago. The shortage in revenue was complemented by a still-constant decrease in overall expenses, but not enough to push out a positive GOPPAR. Though total labor costs were down 53.3% on a per-available-room basis, they were up 6.8 percentage points as a percentage of total revenue, highlighting the dearth in incoming revenue.
Asia-Pacific Rolls On
Asia-Pacific moved across the 50% occupancy threshold in March, which, coupled with an average above $100, led to RevPAR that was 115% higher than at the same time a year ago.
