The Caribbean hotel industry has had a solid start to 2014, according to data from hotel analytics firm STR.

Caribbean Journal is reporting STR figures that show that the region’s hotels saw occupancy rise to 72.6 percent in January, a 2.8 percent rise over the same month in 2013.

The industry’s average daily rate also rose by 5.6 percent, up to $245.46.

The strongest growth came in revenue per available room, or RevPar, which increased by 8.6 percent to $164.74. That came after a strong month of December in which RevPar grew by 10.4 percent year over year.

STR gathers lodging industry supply, demand and performance data from hotels located in more than 160 countries.

Caribbean Jounral stated that the region finished last year with an overall occupancy of 67.1 percent, a 2.1 percent increase over the year 2012. In comparison, Bermuda recorded a 57 percent average occupancy rate last year, according to the National Economic Report of Bermuda for 2013.

STR’s data covered 1,888 census properties and 225,409 rooms in the Caribbean region.

Last month according to according to the December STR Construction Pipeline report the Caribbean/Mexico hotel development pipeline comprises 152 hotels totaling 24,487 rooms. It stated that the total active pipeline includes projects in the In construction, final planning and planning stages, but does not include projects in the preplanning stage.

In 2013, 18 hotels with 3,617 rooms opened in the region. During 2014, 48 hotels with 7,974 rooms are planned to open in the region. The majority of rooms are expected to open in the unaffiliated segment — 2,437 rooms in nine hotels.

Caribbean Journal said that three other segments are expected to open more than 1,000 rooms in 2014: the luxury segment — 1,755 rooms in seven hotels; the upper midscale segment — 1,640 rooms in 15 hotels; and the upscale segment — 1,331 rooms in 11 hotels.