Hotel occupancy for the first 11 months of 2015 increased just slightly over the same period in 2014. But the upper tier properties in the market—which includes most of the downtown hotels, all of the full service hotels and some limited service hotels—showed a more significant growth, which is noteworthy considering inventory increased last year by some 300 rooms, or about 2%.
“Based on the data through November, Baton Rouge had a really good year,” says Ralph Ney, manager of the Baton Rouge Marriott and past president of the Baton Rouge Lodging Association. “Considering we didn’t have anything major in town, except for Bayou Country Superfest with the Taylor Swift concert and some pretty good football games, it was just a normal year.”
Ney says occupancy rates for the first 11 months of 2015 increased 1.7% over 2014 to 65%. Of the 19 upper tier hotels, however, occupancy increased 3% to nearly 69%.
During the same period, the average daily room rate marketwide increased nearly 2% to $85.94. But among the upper tier hotels, ADR increased more than 3.6% to $155.54.
Perhaps most significantly, the metric that measures how well hotels are doing—the revpar, or revenue per available room—increased 3.5% market wide to $56 during the first 11 months of 2015, and jumped nearly 7% to more than $79 among the market’s 19 higher end hotels.
A revpar of around $80 is considered extremely healthy.
“It was a positive year for most hotels here in Baton Rouge,” says Gary Jupiter, general manager of the Doubletree Baton Rouge, which, like the Marriott, is among the upper tier of properties in the market. “We exceeded projections. I know others did, too.”
Jupiter and Ney say they are closely eyeing the new competition. Several more hotels are expected to open in 2016 and 2017, adding still more inventory to the market.
Can the market absorb it all?
“We’re all watching very closely,” Jupiter says.
Visit Baton Rouge declines to comment on the data until year-end figures including the month of December are released later this month.
Ney says December was a slow month for the market and will likely pull down the marketwide average just slightly.
—Stephanie Riegel
