Dive Brief:
- Pebblebrook Hotel Trust reported property room revenues of $185.7 million in the first quarter of 2023, up 18.6% from the first quarter of 2022, according to its first quarter earnings report.
- The investment trust’s urban hotels led portfolio growth in the first quarter, with occupancy up 22.1%, average daily rate rising by 8.7%, total RevPAR increasing by 38.4% and EBITDA more than doubling year over year.
- Increased occupancy at its urban hotels is a result of “improving” business demand, both group and transient, according to Pebblebrook Chairman and CEO Jon Bortz.
Dive Insight:
According to Bortz, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., were Pebblebrook’s most improved urban markets during the first quarter of 2023.
“San Francisco benefited from healthy citywide and corporate group demand as well as improved business transient demand,” he said in the first quarter earnings report, adding that Washington saw significantly improved business transient, group and convention demand, with occupancy levels double what they were at the same time last year.
The increase in business transient demand is reflected in data collected in September by the U.S. Travel Association. Some 78% of respondents to its Business Travel Survey 2022 Q3 said they expected to take at least one trip for conferences, conventions or trade shows in the next six months.
Properties in several urban markets, including San Francisco, Portland, Chicago and Washington, saw substantial gains in room and non-room revenue with improved profits, Bortz said.
In the first quarter, Pebblebrook said it did not see any slowdown in business or leisure demand due to macroeconomic concerns and expects RevPAR to increase to somewhere between $227 million to $234 million in the second quarter.
