The organization "Visit San Antonio" reports the city's $15 billion leisure and hospitality industry continues its comeback from the pandemic. According to June hotel occupancy numbers, 69% of local rooms were full, compared to 73% in June of 2019, a non-pandemic year.
"Clearly we are not there yet as far as those numbers. That was just an outstanding year, but we're close. In fact, we're surprisingly close. We are feeling great about where we are and what the trends have been over the summer," said Richard Oliver, the Director of Partner and Community Relations at Visit San Antonio.
Oliver says there are staffing shortages at hotels, restaurants, and attractions, but those conditions are improving.
He said convention bookings are up too. About 30 conventions are on the books for the coming year with an economic impact of $100 million. Oliver said San Antonio saw 300 conventions canceled during the pandemic.
The city's leisure and hospitality industry ranks only behind the manufacturing and bioscience sectors as the city's biggest employers. Oliver said before the pandemic one in seven San Antonians worked in leisure and hospitality.
Visit San Antonio reports there are 47,962 hotel rooms at 458 hotel properties.
Other statistics from Visit San Antonio's June hotels report:
- The average daily rate for rooms in June was $119.79, a 5.8% rise from the $113.24 rate in June 2019. The rate in May was $107.51.
- Room demand in June was 996,566, or 7.9% behind June 2019
- Room revenue for June came in at $119.4 million, or just 2.6% behind June 2019.
- Room supply for June 2021 was 1,438,860, or about 1.4% behind the same month in 2019
- From January through June of 2021, compared to 2019, room revenue was down 27.6%, occupancy was down 16.2%, room rate was down 12.7% and room demand was down 17.1%.
