Hurricane Laura Displacements Create Hotel Demand in Louisiana and Texas

STR | September 8, 2020

HENDERSONVILLE, Tennessee—Evacuations and displacements due to Hurricane Laura created hotel demand in markets throughout Louisiana and Texas last week, according to an analysis by STR. During the week of 23-29 August, Louisiana hotel occupancy rose 35.9% from the prior week to an absolute level of 55.7%. Texas hotel occupancy improved 17.0% to a level of 54.4%. “Different from the past natural disasters that have led to widescale evacuations, Hurricane Laura hit at a time when hotel performance is incredibly low because of the pandemic,” said Jan Freitag, STR’s SVP of lodging insights. “Usually with these analyses, we see dem...