COVID-19 Hotel Forecast: San Francisco

Summary

The term devastated does not sufficiently characterize the state of San Francisco hotel demand in April. Driven by a 95% evaporation of hotel occupancy, the RevPAR decline exceeded even New York City’s YoY drop.

San Francisco will hit bottom this month, see a slight improvement in May and considerable (relative) rebound in June.

While many are looking backwards to compare the current market environment with the post-9/11 or 2008 Great Recession periods, Phocuswright prefers to look forward – trying to address the tough questions weighing on our collective minds.

Over the coming months, by teaming up with the data science team at LodgIQ, Phocuswright will evaluate a broad swath of hotel-related and other data across a variety of key metropolitan areas. Our key objectives are to model the:

• Level of disruption
• Duration of disruption
• Shape of the recovery curve

The goal is to understand the similarities and differences in hotel market dynamics between destinations. This is especially relevant, as some markets may have yet to peak in terms of the level of infections, while others are seeing active coronavirus case counts decline.