COVID-19 webinar summary: 5 key points on our Mexico and Caribbean webinar, 3 April

Hotel performance declines are being seen throughout the world as the COVID-19 pandemic continues, and both Mexico and the Caribbean are no exception. Our latest webinar touched on performance in these markets, and we’ve summarized five of the key points below.

Please note, performance data below is presented in US$.

Mexico’s occupancy and RevPAR declines look likely to continue

Recent guidelines instructed hotels in Mexico to cancel existing bookings until the end of April, stop accepting new reservations excluding essential business travel, and limit occupancy to below 15%. However, as our latest performance data below highlights, occupancy declined to single-digit levels in the week ending 28 March, which led to a decline in revenue per available room (RevPAR) of 91.1%.

Decreases seen across all key markets in Mexico

As of 28 March, Monterrey was the only market to report occupancy above 10%—with the final week of the month bringing all others to a single-digit level. Los Cabos, the purple and lowest line in the below image, fell to an occupancy level of 3.5%.

Fall in group bookings has impacted higher hotel classes

While all hotel classes in Mexico have experienced significant declines, Luxury and Upper Upscale properties have been hardest hit due to their dependence on group business. The week ending 28 March brought RevPAR declines exceeding 90% in those two classes. As you can see in the image below, the absolute occupancy for Luxury and Upper Upscale hotels has fallen below 10%.

Caribbean hotels have also experienced declines

Travel restrictions and border closures have played a key part in the near-90% RevPAR decline and absolute occupancy level of 10.6% that were reported for the week ending 28 March. Analysis of the daily data shows that occupancy fell to 8.4% as March came to a close.

Occupancy has fallen in all key Caribbean markets

At the end of February, markets like Aruba, the Bahamas and Cayman Islands continued to report year-over-year occupancy growth. At the time of writing, there’s no longer enough open hotels to report daily data. As you can see below, the markets in which STR does have sufficient sample for daily data, it’s another single-digit story. Barbados, the yellow and lowest line on the image below, has fallen to just 1.5% occupancy.

Watch the full recording of the webinar here. For further insights into the impact of COVID-19 on hotel performance, visit our content hub.