U.S. Hotels Extend Growth Streak, but Labor Day Skews Results

U.S. hotels recorded a 21st consecutive week of year-over-year growth through September 5, 2026, but a Labor Day calendar shift makes the latest surge difficult to read as a clean measure of underlying demand.

CoStar’s September 11 report found that occupancy, average daily rate and revenue per available room all increased from the comparable week in 2025. The comparison was unusually favorable because Labor Day fell one week later in 2026 than it did in 2025, shifting holiday-related travel between the two reporting periods.

What the latest numbers show

For the week of August 30 through September 5, national hotel occupancy reached 63.0%, up 9.4% from the comparable week a year earlier. The average daily rate, or ADR, was $159.19, up 6.1%.

Revenue per available room, known as RevPAR, reached $100.31, an increase of 16.1% year over year. RevPAR combines room rates and occupancy and is widely used to track hotel room revenue performance.

These are year-over-year comparisons, not week-over-week increases. In the week-over-week comparison, occupancy fell 1.7%, ADR rose 1.3% and RevPAR declined 0.4%, according to Hotel Management’s summary of the same CoStar data.

CoStar’s figures are specialist hotel-industry measurements, not federal statistics. Their interpretation also depends heavily on the calendar difference between the two Labor Day periods.

Why Labor Day changes the interpretation

CoStar’s earlier analysis found a sharp split between weekdays and the weekend. Because Labor Day fell later in 2026, the comparable weekdays benefited from stronger business, meetings and group demand than the same weekdays in 2025.

At the same time, weekend leisure demand was weaker in the comparison because Labor Day weekend had fallen during the 2025 reporting period and shifted into the following period in 2026. CoStar said Sunday-through-Thursday RevPAR rose 10.9%, while weekend demand declined 8.5% in the earlier comparison.

That timing effect means the 16.1% national RevPAR increase should not be treated as a calendar-adjusted measure of demand. The latest report shows hotel performance above the year-earlier level, but it does not establish that underlying demand accelerated by the same amount across the country.

Markets did not move together

The national result also masked substantial differences among major markets. Minneapolis posted the largest gains among CoStar’s top 25 markets in both occupancy and RevPAR. Occupancy rose 23.2% to 64.9%, while RevPAR increased 35.7% to $87.52.

Las Vegas recorded the largest ADR increase, up 24.8% to $202.85. St. Louis moved in the opposite direction, with occupancy down 7.4%, ADR down 4.7% and RevPAR down 11.8%.

Those examples show why the national figures should not be treated as a uniform result for every destination, hotel class or operator.

What to watch next

The next weekly report should provide a cleaner read on post-Labor Day demand as the holiday-related timing difference moves through the data.

For now, the report supports two conclusions: U.S. hotels are still posting sustained year-over-year gains, and the size of the latest increase requires caution because the calendar amplified the comparison.

Sources

• CoStar hotel results for the week ending September 5, 2026
• CoStar/STR analysis of Labor Day timing
• Hotel Management summary of the CoStar data

Look for updates to this story

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