By Will Feuer
Park Hotels & Resorts Inc. said that overall occupancy across the company’s 48 hotels continued to improve in March from February, and that demand for crucial business and group travel strengthened during the month.
Demand for leisure travel remained strong in the Hawaii, Florida and Puerto Rico markets, Chief Executive Thomas Baltimore Jr. said.
Demand for business and group travel recovered, especially across the company’s urban portfolio, including San Francisco, New York, Boston, Chicago and Washington, D.C., Mr. Baltimore said. Those urban markets have largely lagged behind the recovery seen in nonurban, vacation-heavy parts of the country.
The company said group bookings for the remainder of 2022 and 2023 tripled last month.
Mr. Baltimore said he expects the pace of improvement to accelerate over the rest of the year.
The company expects occupancy across its open hotels to reach the low-70% range in April, with the average daily rate charged expected to come in 8% higher than 2019 levels, Mr. Baltimore said.
“Overall, we are incredibly encouraged by the pace of recovery across all demand segments, with Park’s portfolio on track to fully recover by 2023,” he said.
Write to Will Feuer at Will.Feuer@wsj.com