Metro Denver hotel occupancies plunged to a 19-year low in 2009 as a bad economy torpedoed business travel.
Room rates also fell sharply from record levels in 2008, according to a report from Denver-based Horwath HTL/Montgomery & Associates.
The 2009 occupancy rate of 60.6 percent was down from 66.6 percent in 2008 and the worst performance since 60 percent in 1990.
After reaching an all-time high of $128 in 2008, average room rates dropped 11 percent to $114 in 2009.
“The sector that really has been hurt is business travel,” said John Montgomery, managing director of the hotel consulting firm. “Before, they would come to town for three or four days. Now they come maybe for one day or not at all.”
Leisure travel also was off but not as precipitously as business travel.
Despite the poor annual performance in 2009, the market showed signs of recovery in the last quarter of the year, Montgomery said.
“We think we’ve bottomed out here,” he said. “Many hospitality-industry professionals believe that metro Denver will start to experience a growth in occupancy and average room rate by mid- to late 2010.”
For 2009, downtown Denver had the metro area’s highest average room rate, $139, down from $156 in 2008.
In a separate lodging report released this week, bookings at Rocky Mountain resorts for the coming six months were up slightly from last year’s pace.
Lodging reservations taken in December for 15 mountain destinations, including all of Colorado’s major resorts, rose 1.4 percent, according to the Mountain Travel Research Program. December’s occupancy rate at the mountain resorts fell to 40.3 percent, from 41.2 percent in December 2008.
Steve Raabe: 303-954-1948 or sraabe@denverpost.com
