This year, holidaymakers swapped busy travel destinations for smaller cities and warmer weather.
The global hospitality benchmarking firm revealed that Florida’s Tampa and St. Petersburg became the two top cities with the highest hotel occupancy rate in the U.S. 2020 travel market.
With its 51% average occupancy rate between January and November, Tampa and St. Petersburg were followed by Phoenix (50.3%), San Diego (50.0%), Los Angeles (49.9%), and Norfolk and Virginia Beach (49.4%).
They all took over otherwise popular Miami (46.2%) and Orlando (41.8%).
Florida had to deal with rising COVID-19 case numbers in summer, hitting occupancy as low as 22%.
However, it quickly recuperated to its current position, as ‘safe, pristine, open-air opportunities’ was promoted by the city, said Santiago Corrada, CEO of Visit Tampa Bay.
Last year, New York City was in the lead with an 86% average hotel occupancy rate (compared to 47.4% this year), followed by Oahu in Hawaii at 84.2% (now 40.8%), and San Francisco at 82.9% (now 43%), while Tampa was at 72.6% in 2019.
The average hotel occupancy rate for the top 25 U.S. travel destinations of 2020 was 43.6% (44.7% overall), compared to 74% last year (67.1% overall).
On the other hand, colder destinations appeared to be the least busy ones, such as Minneapolis and St. Paul in Minnesota and Wisconsin (34.1%), Boston (35.6%), and Chicago (36.2%).
According to United Nations projections, more than 100 million jobs are at risk within the travel industry, reaching a $1 trillion (USD) loss worldwide.
The American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) claims that 71% of hotels will not be able to survive the next six months at their current occupancy without the government’s help.
Up to this date, more than 18 million Coronavirus cases and 320,000 deaths have been reported in the U.S.
The numbers are still growing, and the country is holding the top position in terms of both, positive cases and deaths.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advice to avoid traveling for non-essential reasons during the holidays.