By the Caribbean Journal staff
After a year of struggle in 2018, the Caribbean’s hotel industry is seeing continued momentum in 2019, according to the latest data fro analytics firm STR.
The region’s hotel occupancy was 74.4 percent in February, a 1.2 percent increase compared to the same month in 2018.
More crucially, however, it was the third consecutive month of positive year-over-year occupancy growth, the first time that’s happened in the Caribbean since the beginning of 2015.
Average daily rates rose by 6.9 percent in the same period to $271.13, while revenue per available room surged by 9 percent to $173.23 in February.
For the year, the region’s hotel occupancy is up by 0.9 percent to 71.5 percent, while daily rates are up by 7.1 percent at $259.48 and RevPar is up 8 percent to $193.05.
STR’s data surveyed 1,971 hotels comprising a total of 253,744 rooms in the wider Caribbean region.
— CJ