Atlanta Hotels are Open for Business
Atlanta has largely outperformed similar metros due to the strength of the local economy and more relaxed COVID-19 restriction policies.
Despite a challenging year, Atlanta’s hospitality market has kept pace with the overall U.S. and is on track for a recovery as we begin the second half of 2021.
Atlanta has largely outperformed similar metros due to the strength of the local economy and more relaxed COVID-19 restriction policies, which allowed business travel to be exchanged for leisure travel during the pandemic. Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport remained the top airport in 2020 for U.S. passenger traffic and ranked a close second on a global scale after Guangzhou Bai Yun International Airport in China. As a result, demand has picked up significantly in the last two months and at the end of June, the city had an occupancy rate of 57.8%, the fifth highest among the Top 25 U.S. Markets.
An increase in lodging demand across Atlanta is evident not only when comparing monthly 2021 demand levels to 2020 performance but also to 2019 monthly performance. The reduction in monthly lodging demand relative to pre-pandemic 2019 levels is slowing month over month. In terms of RevPAR, Atlanta ranks 13th amongst the Top 25 U.S. markets at $53, which is down 37.9% since 2019, but is still one of the smaller declines when compared to the other top 25 markets.
As another indication of Atlanta’s lodging market recovery, the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau is reporting a strong convention booking pace. As of July 2021, room nights on the books for 2022 are 798,038, which is on par with pre-Covid 2020 bookings and 6% higher than pace targets. The first half of 2021, the city hosted a handful of large conferences, including Cheersport’s national competition at the Georgia World Congress Center (GWCC), Mizuno Big South National Qualifier volleyball tournaments and SECO International’s annual convention highlighting optical research. In July 2021, Atlanta hosted HoopSeen’s 2021 Best of the South boys basketball tournament at the GWCC, which was the largest NCAA-certified boys event ever run under one roof with 517 teams and more than 5,000 athletes. Additionally, Best of South recently announced it will return to Atlanta in 2022 and 2023.
Looking forward, we are optimistic about Atlanta’s hotel market recovery and are seeing daily increases in conference bookings, leisure travel and lastly and maybe most importantly, business travel.
Katy Reynolds is a Senior Vice President in JLL Hotel’s & Hospitality Group.