Hotel performance for all Boston hotels is expected to finish this year at a 14 percent decline in Revenue Per Available Room (RevPAR), the worst performance since 2001, when the market experienced a 19.4 percent RevPAR decline, according to PKF Hospitality Research (PKF-HR), the research affiliate of PKF Consulting. 

Boston-area hotels are not expected to have an increase in quarterly Revenue Per Available Room (RevPAR) until first quarter 2010, according to PKF-HR’s latest monthly hotel trend report. 

While this may sound like bad news it is actually far sooner than the national hotel market overall, which is not expected to achieve quarterly RevPAR gains until 2011, said Reed Woodworth, vice president at PKF Consulting. 

Net operating income for Boston area hotels is expected to decline at a rate of 31.2 percent in 2009, slightly worse than the nationwide expected decline of 30.1 percent.

Research conducted over the past decade by PKF-HR reveals that changes in total national employment track closely with changes in lodging industry performance; and the same holds true at the local level as well. 

The most recent forecasts from Moody’s Economy.com call for employment declines in the metro Boston area of 2.8 percent in 2009, slightly better than the national estimated contraction of 2.9 percent. 

After finishing 2008 with a slightly lower RevPAR, lower-priced hotels are expected to perform better than their higher-priced counterparts in 2009. Occupancy is forecast to decline 5.8 percent and ADR is projected to decrease by 4.0 percent, yielding an overall 9.6 percent drop in RevPAR. 

The performance declines for lower-priced properties are significant, but not as severe as in past recessions.