Greater Worcester hotel occupancy beat national average in January
Photo | Grant Welker
The AC Hotel on Front Street in downtown Worcester
January is often a slow time for Worcester-area hotels, but there was a bright spot this year: rooms were more likely to be occupied here than the rest of the nation on average.
The Worcester metropolitan area's occupancy rate in January was 45.7%, compared to a national average of 39.3%, according to STR, a global hospitality data and analytics company. The area's rates were also not down so sharply compared to a year prior just before the coronavirus pandemic hit, when the rate was 48.4%.
The Worcester metro area, which includes Worcester County and Connecticut's Windham County, receives a relative benefit from not relying so heavily on tourism or major conventions, two areas that have been crippled during the pandemic. Among the country's largest markets, for example, Oahu, which includes Honolulu in Hawaii, had a January occupancy rate of 23.6%.
January, despite normally being the area's slowest month for hotels, was also among the best since the pandemic hit, even as the region hit all-time highs in new cases. The worst month was last April, during the region's initial spike in cases, when occupancy hit 22.9%.
The pandemic has coincided with construction delays on two new hotels planned in Worcester.
A hotel that's been planned for across the street from the Polar Park baseball stadium on Madison Street has been pushed back to a May 2024 opening, and reduced in size from 262 units split between two brands to a single, 125-room development. A Home2 Suites hotel with roughly 100 rooms on Washington Square next to Union Station is planned to start construction within the next year, according to the city.
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments