Bogotá hotel performance update: what’s next?

While COVID-19 vaccination programs continue to inoculate travelers around the world, lockdowns in many regions have yet to fully lift, leading to continued challenges for hotels. One example where such challenges remain is Bogotá, where a lockdown until June along with protests in Colombia have led to a significant impact on hotel performance.

Occupancy timeline

Although Bogotá’s hotel occupancy has improved slightly from low points of the past year, occupancy across all parts of the market remain far behind pre-pandemic levels. Along with travel restrictions and lockdown measures, social unrest in the country is also hindering further improvement.

In April 2021, Bogotá posted a 20.9% occupancy level, which was slightly below March (23.6%) but was the market’s second highest occupancy level since December 2020.

Among Bogotá’s submarkets, Bogotá Zona T (24.0%) and Bogotá North (23.3%) saw the highest occupancy levels in April 2021.

ADR impact
Bogotá’s average daily rate (ADR) for April 2021 was COP215152.10, up from CO213172.39 in March and COP204230.01 in February. The market’s ADR in April was its highest since November 2020 (COP217760.74).

The submarkets of the Bogotá CBD and Bogotá Zona T posted the highest ADR level in April 2021 at COP336407.25 and COP270666.96, respectively.

For comparison, Bogotá North was COP201897.09 in April 2021, after coming in at COP199849.97 in March and COP201297.93 in February.

What’s next?
Bogotá’s occupancy on the books (as of 31 May) remains remarkably low over the next 90 days, with levels below 15%. As we noted in a previous article, it is important to remember that the pandemic has shifted guest tendency toward shorter booking windows. Travelers are still awaiting confirmation of softened travel restrictions, which should be followed by a sharp increase in demand.

Pickup, the second Forward STAR metric, representing the change in bookings from the previous week, also exhibits higher growth in the short run, a trend consistent with last-minute bookings. Low but positive pickup for upcoming weeks suggests consumers remain wary and somewhat pessimistic about the length of Bogotá’s lockdown and Colombia’s travel restrictions as well as the ongoing protests around the country.

Occupancy-on-the-books intelligence will help pinpoint recovery and provide much-needed context. Those insights can be accessed for free when you submit your data. If you are interested, please email sales@str.com.

For more information about our occupancy on the books data, check out Forward STAR.