There are just 933 resorts in the USA that hotel industry tracker STR classifies “high end” (think Four Seasons, Ritz-Carlton, St. Regis, etc.) and their bottom lines have been soaring for the first seven months of this year vs. the same period in 2013, according to veteran industry tracker Jan Freitag, a senior vice president of research firm STR.
During his presentation last month to a group of executives from leading travel agencies and Destination Hotels & Resorts at Destination’s high-end Terranea resort south of Los Angeles, Freitag said that the number of high-end resort rooms is essentially flat (+0.4%) through July vs. the same period a year ago.
But rates are soaring? Why? demand for those rooms jumped 2.8% as the economy recovered and people felt more confident to spend more money on high-end resort stays, Freitag said.
Given those stats, consumers should expect to keep seeing ever rising rates.
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In fact, the average daily rate paid for one of these rooms so far this year is $226, a new record, Freitag said.
That rate includes a mix of deluxe resorts in the USA’s most expensive markets, as well as the least expensive, which makes the average daily rate (ADR) seem lower than some I would’ve guessed given that you can easily pay $1,000 a night at some of these places. The ADR, by the way, does not include the sometimes-hidden fees that resorts often frustrate customers.
Readers: Have you noticed the rates at the high-end resorts going up, up, up?
(Disclosure: Destination Hotels paid for my trip.)
