After a 14-month lull, the Transportation Security Administration is clocking daily traveler numbers in excess of 2 million—the first time since March 7, when the COVID-19 pandemic began gripping the nation. And that increase in air travelers is evident in the hospitality sector's continued recovery, which has been apparent across multiple data points. 

A recent Trepp analysis shows that the share of non-farm employees in the leisure and hospitality sector as reported by the Fed's economic data was around 10% in May, up from an April 2020 low of 6.6% and nearly up to the pre-pandemic level of 11%. And the Trepp CMBS delinquency rate for hotel properties also dropped to 14.2% last month, down from an all-time high of 24.3% in June of last year. 

But diving deeper into the data paints an even more nuanced picture of just how deeply the lodging sector fell into a COVID trough: the room revenues per key for hotels backing CMBS all reduced markedly from 2019 to 2020 in four key states. California and New York saw the biggest decreases (from $80,288 in 2019 to $30,834 in 2020 in California and from $49,217 to $23,059 in New York), followed by Florida (a decrease from $40,387 to $28,637) and Texas (down from $30,546 to $25,301).