CLEVELAND — Downtown Cleveland businesses are still fighting to bring people back into the city, including hotels.
Although occupancy rates were higher in 2022 than they were in 2021, the numbers are still lower than pre-pandemic statistics in 2019. STR, a global hospitality data and analytics company, calculated the data.
In 2022, hotels saw a 58.4% occupancy rate, which is higher than in previous years. In 2021, hotels saw a 51.7% occupancy rate and in 2020 a 37.1% rate.
"I think Cleveland, while it continues to have some runway in the occupancy side, the market has performed really well on the rate side and that positions it well for continued recovery in 2023, said Romy Bhojwani of CoStar Group, STR’s parent company.
The increase in occupancy is considered a victory even if hotels did forfeit four years worth of growth.
"The recovery will be a longer process for some business in the economy, especially in travel, hospitality related and especially in hotels," said Joe Savarise, Ohio Hotel and Lodging Association.
Events such as business meetings, conventions and in-person sales calls are all down due to the pandemic. Business travels fell behind discretionary travel.
But now, people are starting to go to games and events, maybe even staying an extra night in town. It is starting to come back, it will just take some time.
"There is a quality to just being in Cleveland, where you can walk into a restaurant, you can walk into a bar and people are just so friendly, warm and welcoming," said Bhojwani. "I love that about Cleveland, I really do."
Watch live and local news any time:
Download the News 5 Cleveland app now for more stories from us, plus alerts on major news, the latest weather forecast, traffic information and much more. Download now on your Apple device here, and your Android device here.
You can also catch News 5 Cleveland on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, YouTube TV, DIRECTV NOW, Hulu Live and more. We're also on Amazon Alexa devices. Learn more about our streaming options here.
