Elgin Area Chamber Of Commerce: Return Of Leisure Travelers Boosts Chicago's Lodging Market

Press release from the Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce:

October 15, 2021

By Anne Purcell
CoStar Analytics
 

Chicago hotels saw steady improvement in the third quarter, thanks to leisure travelers who returned to the region for weddings, concerts, sporting events and long delayed vacations.
 

Nearly 400,000 concertgoers descended on the city for Lollapalooza in July, giving the region its best weekend performance in more than 18 months.

Though weekend occupancy averaged 78% for the past three months, and average daily rates ticked up past $150, the lack of business travel and convention groups on the weekdays continues to bring down overall performance. Revenue per available room, or RevPAR, is forecast to finish the year at about $50, an improvement of 60% over 2020. A return to pre-pandemic levels of RevPAR is not expected for several more years, however.

Despite the market’s slow recovery, there’s plenty of interest in building and buying hotels in Chicago. Thirteen hotels totaling 1,500 rooms have opened this year, with one more to go. The 215-room Canopy Chicago Central Loop, a conversion of a former office building built in 1904, is scheduled to open in December.

Ten hotels sold in the third quarter, including the $55 million sale of Joie de Vivre’s Talbott Hotel in the Gold Coast neighborhood. At $309,000 per key, the hotel’s sale is the highest price per key transaction in more than two years. Canadian buyer FullG Capital is clearly betting on Chicago’s imminent recovery.

Source: CoStar Group, www.costar.com

This press release was produced by the Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce. The views expressed here are the author’s own.