Nationally, hotel occupancy was down 34.5% compared to 2019 this week. Atlanta was 4th out of the 25 biggest lodging markets in the US for the least occupancy rate declines (-28.4%). Small Metro/Town (55.8%), Interstate (53.6%), and Suburban (50.8%) hotels continue to be the best performing hotels in terms of occupancy for 2020.
Restaurant Reservations are up significantly this week, 5% for the US as a whole and 2.24% in the state of Georgia. This coincides with a decrease of daily cases in the US, as the country continues to quell the virus, these numbers should continue to recover. Currently restaurant reservations are slightly more than 50% of what they were the year prior. Fine dining has been affected significantly more than the rest of the industry, with casual dining and bars recovered up to approximately 70% of what they were last year.
After a promising two weeks of increasing passenger throughput, TSA traffic has stagnated again this week. Dropping 1.5% on average compared to last week, it failed to set a record high on Monday like it has historically. With a high of 841,806 passengers, 21,143 below last week’s high there may be a cause for alarm, however the market continued to surge up in the airline sector this week, with a 5% increase in Delta stock by midday Monday and other airlines following a similar trend.
In Part 1, David Springstead and Collie Greenwood of MARTA discuss the future of mass-transit in the City of Atlanta using blended services and options which leverage pilot technologies. In Part 2, Kari Watkins of Georgia Tech’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, discusses the impact real-time transit information has had in sustaining urban communities and their economies through her OneBusAway Program.
For the week of August 17-21, the index comprising 30 bonds was up 2.3% Year-to-Date, a decrease of 0.3 percentage points since last week.
For the week of August 17-21, the Georgia public firms index dropped 1.8% this week in price. The index is down -1.8% YTD, a setback of 130 points.
Georgia’s July gross sales and use collections grew +6.9% YoY, the highest growth in collections in 2020. Only 4 industries posted negative growth this month: accommodation (-48.33%), home furnishings (-14.06%), utilities (-7.47%), and wholesale (-7.38%). The top 3 industries that experienced the most sales tax growth YoY this month are other retail (+33.83%), auto (+23.86%), and construction (+18.18%).
Total preliminary initial unemployment claims were down 7% from the previous week. The industries with the largest upticks in new claims was Health Care and Social Assistance seeing a 15% increase in new claims, while the Transportation and Warehousing industry saw a 49% decrease in new weekly initial claims since last week.
FAA traffic numbers for Atlanta for the month of June saw a steady increase in flights to and from Atlanta. May reported a high of 673 daily flights, while June nearly reached 40% of pre-corona numbers at 955 daily flights. June of last year averaged 2,609 daily flights. Expect to see a decline for the month of July, if TSA checkpoint numbers are anything to go by. The ratio will not be 1-to-1 however, as airlines will likely change their schedules to match the needs of their customers.
Restaurant reservations around the country rose 1% last week. In the Southeast, foot traffic casual dining rose 1.6% and rose 0.8% for bars. Fast food remains unaffected by the pandemic
Photo of an undetermined Georgia Tech home game during the 1918 college football season. That's when the sport was hit by the Spanish flu and the end of World War I.
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