We found a substantial occupancy drop at all locations and at all hotel types. Weekend occupancies have also been boosted by the demand for extended-stay facilities and probably by the special prices offered by airlines for flights that require a Saturday stay. Room demand on holidays, however, is generally weak, and the average room rate is lower on a holiday than in normal weekend periods. We found some exceptions to those weaknesses, though, in the long weekends of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Birthday, Washington's Birthday, and Columbus Day. Nevertheless, for holidays as a group, we have extrapolated the sample's RevPAR and occupancy to cover the total STR database.
Statisticians frequently use much smaller groups as a basis for projecting results.
The U.S. Census Bureau, for instance, was planning to use sampling methods for its 2000 population census, a far larger endeavor than our survey. Thanksgiving Day always falls on the fourth Thursday of November, while Christmas 1998 and New Year's Day 1999 fell on a Saturday. Independence Day 1998 fell on a Saturday.