Solar eclipse drove mind-blowing performances

NATIONAL REPORT - The total solar eclipse on Monday, April 8 may have darkened cities across Mexico, the U.S., and Canada, but you may want to grab your eclipse glasses once again in preparation for how much the event brightened performance.

In Mexico, where the eclipse first made its journey across North America, markets in the path of totality saw year-over-year (YoY) RevPAR gains of 438% on Sunday, April 8. Because there were only four Mexico markets in the pathway (of 59), the country’s total RevPAR declined slightly.

In the U.S., markets in the pathway (120 of 687) saw a 288% increase in the metric, compared to the total U.S., which reported an increase of 42% with help from an easy comparison to Easter Sunday in 2023.

In Canada, RevPAR rose 224% across six markets, while the overall country (80 markets) saw a 28% gain in the metric.

When compared to the last eclipse which occurred Monday, 21 August 2017, gains in the U.S. were larger and the impact on the country’s overall performance was significantly higher.

There were significant differences between the two happenings in 2024 and 2017. These differences should be noted before making too much of the comparison. In 2017, the path of totality crossed very few larger population areas; the duration this year was almost double 2017, and there was no modern precedent for how the spectacle would stack up.

The 2017 eclipse did benefit from occurring during the summer vacation season, however, the other differences far outweighed this advantage. The 2024 eclipse came at a time when the matched day in 2023 fell during Easter Sunday, which is historically a slow day for hotels, providing an easy YoY comparison.

Large markets impacted

Several large markets in Texas, Indianapolis, Montreal, and Toronto were the urban areas in the path of the eclipse seeing the greatest impact. Of these markets, Indianapolis saw the greatest RevPAR increase (+660%) and achieved the third-highest RevPAR gain of any day since 2017. Dallas achieved the fourth-highest RevPAR for any day since 2017. The larger the market, the harder it is to see impact due to more available supply and higher performance baselines.

Among second-tier markets, Buffalo, Cleveland and Rochester, New York, saw the greatest RevPAR gains and posted their highest RevPAR lifts of any day since 2017. Smaller markets with limited supply are where some of the greatest RevPAR increases are seen.

Nine additional markets in the path of totality (Albany, Arkansas Area, Illinois South, Indiana South, Little Rock, New York State, Syracuse, Texas Central and Vermont) recorded a RevPAR gain on April 7 that ranked in top 10 for any day since 2017.