The United States hotel industry is experiencing an unprecedented downturn. All hotel industry performance metrics, Average Daily Rate, Occupancy Percentage, and Revenue per Available Room have all trended downward over the past year. At the end of June, based on reporting from Smith Travel Research, national average room rates began to drop at a more rapid pace than occupancy percentages, marking the start of a new phase in the recession. The deeper discounting that has begun is on top of rate cuts that have already return average room rates to 2006 levels.