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Visit Seattle reported that downtown Seattle had its strongest April for hotels since the COVID-19 pandemic impacted tourism in the area.
According to data from the organization, April 2025 outperformed April of last year in every metric and neared pre-pandemic levels for both rooms sold and occupancy.
“An especially notable achievement when considering the 5.4% increase in room supply since April 2019,” Visit Seattle’s report states.
The report revealed that Seattle’s downtown hotels sold 330,962 rooms with occupancy at 72.6%, which is still 6.7% less than April 2019.
In total, downtown’s hotel occupancy generated $67.7 million in revenue last month.
April marks the beginning of cruise season, which brings in a wave of tourism to the city. The Port of Seattle expects the 2025 cruise season to bring in 1.9 million passengers to the city throughout the summer, which is estimated to generate $900 million annually in economic impact to Seattle.
The Seattle Convention Center also hosted Sakura-Con – a popular Japanese anime convention – over the Easter weekend, which Visit Seattle notes is “always popular.”
The latest data from Visit Seattle shows a continuing trend of downtown’s recovery from the pandemic. However, the area is shifting from a more work-centered neighborhood to a residential one, as intended as part of Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell’s Downtown Activation Plan.
According to the latest data from the Downtown Seattle Association, the downtown area averaged nearly 101,000 daily workers last March – the highest daily average since March 2020, when the pandemic started. However, the rate of office workers downtown is still around 55% of the number of workers in an equivalent week in 2019.
In March, the number of occupied apartment units downtown continued to rise to more than 59,000, which is a 4% increase compared to quarter one of 2024 and a 26% increase compared to quarter one of 2019, showcasing progress regarding Harrell’s goal of making the area more residential.
Visit Seattle notes that Seattle’s “busy season” starts from Memorial Day through Labor Day, so data trends are expected to continue to show increases in hotel performances.