Selling the millions of cars that came off Detroit-area assembly lines during the most recent recession might have been tough, but filling the more than 1,600 new hotel rooms that came online in downtown Detroit at the same time was likely tougher.

Between 2007 and 2009, three new hotels and one renovated property opened in downtown Detroit, just in time for the economy to crater and push the area’s occupancy rate below the dreaded 50% mark.

“When those hotels came out, the market fell apart,” said Michael O’Callaghan, COO of the Detroit Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau. “It was brutal around here.”

Not so much now. Spurred primarily by a rebound in demand for cars and trucks made by General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, Detroit hotels’ revenue per available room for the first six months of the year jumped 13.8% from a year earlier, trailing only San Francisco-San Mateo, Oahu and Dallas among the 25 largest U.S. markets in terms of RevPAR growth, STR reported last month.

The Detroit market, which consists of about 40,000 rooms, reported a 66.3% occupancy rate in June, putting the metropolitan area on par with overall U.S. occupancy and ahead of markets such as Atlanta, Houston and Tampa-St. Petersburg.

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