Despite a challenging year, Atlanta's hospitality market has kept pace with the overall U.S. and is on track for a recovery as we begin the second half of 2021.

Atlanta has largely outperformed similar metros due to the strength of the local economy and more relaxed COVID-19 restriction policies, which allowed business travel to be exchanged for leisure travel during the pandemic. Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport remained the top airport in 2020 for U.S. passenger traffic and ranked a close second on a global scale after Guangzhou Bai Yun International Airport in China. As a result, demand has picked up significantly in the last two months and at the end of June, the city had an occupancy rate of 57.8%, the fifth highest among the Top 25 U.S. Markets.

An increase in lodging demand across Atlanta is evident not only when comparing monthly 2021 demand levels to 2020 performance but also to 2019 monthly performance. The reduction in monthly lodging demand relative to pre-pandemic 2019 levels is slowing month over month. In terms of RevPAR, Atlanta ranks 13th amongst the Top 25 U.S. markets at $53, which is down 37.9% since 2019, but is still one of the smaller declines when compared to the other top 25 markets.