Williston, ND hotel market report, Q1 2026

Williston's hotels are earning more per room than ever while selling fewer rooms, and nobody is building more. Over the twelve months through April 2026 the market ran 52.5% occupancy, a $98.93 ADR and $51.90 RevPAR. Occupancy slipped -5.8%, but rate jumped +10.4%, so RevPAR still grew +4.0%. With no new hotels in the pipeline, any recovery in oil-driven demand goes straight to existing owners.

Executive summary

Williston sits at the geographic and economic heart of the Bakken Formation, one of the most productive oil and natural gas plays in North America. Its 23 hotels and 2,517 rooms are shaped almost entirely by the energy sector. The current figures reflect a market settling down after its post-COVID recovery peak.

Occupancy fell as oilfield drilling softened and contracted labor demand pulled back a little. ADR climbed to nearly $99, showing that operators kept their pricing power even as room nights eased, and rate carried RevPAR higher. The market cap rate is 14.1%, among the highest of any hotel submarket in the Upper Midwest, reflecting both strong income yields and the cyclical risk premium investors put on energy markets.

The pipeline is empty. CoStar confirms 0 rooms under construction and no projects in final planning or proposed. Williston's extended-stay segment stands out, with a large share of independent and economy extended-stay rooms serving workforce housing for Bakken field crews.

CoStar calculates occupancy, ADR and RevPAR on its 2,647-room analytic pool of reporting hotels; the 2,517 inventory rooms are used for every statement about market size.

The market

Williston is the county seat of Williams County and the commercial hub of far northwestern North Dakota. It sits where U.S. Highways 2 and 85 meet, near the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers, about 18 miles from the Montana border and 60 miles south of Canada. The nearest major metro, Bismarck, is about 220 miles southeast, so Williston is a largely self-contained regional economy with few competing places to stay within an easy drive.

The population has swung sharply over the past 15 years, almost entirely with the oil patch. The 2020 Census counted 29,160 residents, nearly double the 14,716 of 2010, as the Bakken drilling boom drew tens of thousands of energy and support workers. Since the 2014 to 2016 oil price crash, the population has settled at a higher baseline than before, as the Bakken matured from exploration to production. Williams County's median household income consistently ranks among the highest in North Dakota on energy-sector wages.

Williston Basin International Airport (XWA) is a key piece of infrastructure for the hotels. Opened in 2019 at a cost of $240 million, it served 208,990 passengers in 2025, +5.6% over 2024, with service to Denver on United Express and to Minneapolis-St. Paul on Delta Connection. It can handle up to 350,000 passengers a year, so there is room to grow. Air service brings in fly-in energy workers, contractors and business travelers, which supports strong corporate transient demand.

Top employers

Halliburton is the largest private employer in the Williston area, with an estimated 700-plus people providing oilfield completion and production services across the Bakken. Williston Basin School District 1 employs about 600, a steady public-sector base. Sanford Health's Mercy Medical Center and its clinics employ about 450 and drive steady medical-travel demand. SLB (formerly Schlumberger) has about 350 oilfield services employees here, and Williams County government employs about 280. Together these five are the core of the area's non-transient workforce demand.

New supply

Williston's hotel pipeline is completely empty as of April 2026: no rooms under construction, none in final planning and no proposed projects. No new hotel opened in the trailing twelve months; the 2 rooms CoStar lists as recently opened reflect minor renovations or reclassifications, not new construction.

This lack of supply defines the current investment cycle. The swings of oil-driven demand from 2014 to 2019, when occupancy fell from peaks above 85% at the height of the boom to the low 40s in the bust, effectively froze financing for new hotels here. Lenders and developers remain cautious about Williston, which creates a lasting barrier to new supply and a real advantage for the hotels already operating.

No active hotel pipeline: with nothing coming, any improvement in oil-driven demand goes directly to the hotels already in the market.

Demand drivers

Williston's demand is dominated by oil and gas in a way that sets it apart from almost every other Upper Midwest market. About 45% of estimated hotel demand comes from Bakken oilfield operations: drilling crews, completion specialists, pipeline workers, equipment operators and the wider supply chain that supports active wells in Williams, McKenzie and nearby counties.

Oil, gas and industry

The Bakken under Williams County is one of the most productive tight-oil plays in North America. Its wells are run by Continental Resources, Chord Energy (the 2022 merger of Whiting Petroleum and Oasis Petroleum) and many smaller operators. Oilfield services firms, including Halliburton, SLB, Baker Hughes and Liberty Energy, keep large local operations and generate steady extended-stay demand. A typical Bakken field worker is on a rotation, such as two weeks on and two weeks off, which drives extended-stay occupancy rather than traditional transient business. WoodSpring Suites (248 rooms) and Prairie Suites Motel (271 rooms) are largely sustained by this workforce.

Leisure and tourism

Leisure demand rests on nearby historic and natural attractions. Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site, 25 miles west near the Montana border, is a nationally significant fur-trade site run by the National Park Service, and Fort Buford State Historic Site next to it draws more history visitors. The North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, about 70 miles south near Watford City, generates summer and fall travel that spills into Williston's hotels because there is little lodging near the park. Together they drive real seasonal weekend demand from May through October.

Corporate and business

Non-energy corporate demand comes from vendors, contractors and professional service providers serving the wider business community: regional sales reps, banking and finance professionals, and logistics and transportation executives. It is concentrated Monday through Thursday and is most consistent in the second and third quarters, when oilfield activity peaks.

Healthcare and medical

Sanford Health's Mercy Medical Center is a 25-bed critical access hospital serving northwestern North Dakota and northeastern Montana. It draws medical professionals, visiting specialists, patients from remote rural areas and their families, all of whom need rooms. It has also attracted other providers and specialist clinics to the region, slowly widening the healthcare demand base.

Government and transient

Williams County, the City of Williston and state and federal offices generate modest but steady government travel. The nearby U.S.-Canada border brings periodic customs, immigration and enforcement activity. The airport generates transient demand from travelers who need a night before or after connecting through Denver or Minneapolis.

Known developments

Performance

Every performance figure here comes from CoStar's April 2026 market report for Williston. CoStar tracks 23 existing hotels with 2,517 inventory rooms and calculates performance on its 2,647-room analytic pool of reporting hotels, a slight difference that reflects which hotels report.

Against the last ten years, occupancy is inside its usual range but below its average, while rate and RevPAR have broken above theirs.

The trend since 2016

Each point below is a trailing twelve-month figure; 2026 is the current twelve months, not year to date, so every year compares like for like.

The trend shows the volatility of an energy-dependent hotel market. Occupancy collapsed in both the 2014 to 2016 oil bust and the pandemic, bottoming at about 31.1% in 2020, the low of the ten-year range. The recovery was fast and strong, driven by the Bakken production ramp from 2021 through 2024, with occupancy reaching 55% and RevPAR hitting all-time highs. The current pullback to 52.5% fits the settling phase after a peak, while ADR keeps setting new highs at $98.93.

Seasonality

Williston's seasons follow both oilfield scheduling and tourism. Occupancy peaks from June through October at 59% to 61%, when construction, outdoor energy work and tourism all converge. April, May and October also run high at 55% to 61%, reflecting year-round Bakken extraction. The winter months, November through February, are weakest at 39% to 47%, when harsh weather limits construction and recreation. ADR stays remarkably steady through the year, from about $96 in December to about $104 in July, a sign that operators have moved away from deep seasonal discounting and manage revenue with more discipline.

Peer markets

All three markets share the Bakken energy economy and run nearly identical occupancy, within half a point of each other at about 52%. That convergence reflects their common driver: an oilfield workforce that has eased from its peak across the whole western North Dakota energy corridor. The difference is rate. Dickinson commands a real premium at $108.44, about $9.50 above Williston and $14 above Minot, on a tighter supply base (1,675 rooms against Williston's 2,517) and the many newer select-service hotels it added during the boom. Minot trails on ADR at $94.75, partly because its more diversified demand (Minot Air Force Base, a retail trade area, a university) includes lower-rated segments. Williston sits in the middle at $98.93, with the strongest ADR momentum of the three at +10.4%.

Own a hotel in the Bakken? Request a hotel valuation, or ask for a market report on your own market.

Brands and franchise parents

This section covers all 23 open hotels in CoStar's property export, whether or not each reports to STR. The brand mix reflects an energy economy: a heavy concentration of economy and extended-stay hotels built for workforce demand, a cluster of upper midscale select-service brands and a large independent, unbranded sector.

Wyndham is the leading franchise family with 6 hotels and 522 rooms, 20.7% of inventory, spanning Super 8, Microtel, Baymont, Ramada, Hawthorn and the upscale Roosevelt Hotel in the Trademark Collection. That concentration reflects heavy development in the boom years, when Wyndham's economy and midscale brands suited workforce demand. Choice has 4 hotels and 506 rooms (20.1%), including the 248-room WoodSpring Suites, likely the single highest-revenue hotel in the market. The independent and unbranded sector is remarkably large: 8 hotels with 1,017 rooms, 40.4% of inventory, a legacy of the non-traditional workforce lodging built during the oil boom.

The brands missing from Williston

Risks and headwinds

Oil prices and rig counts

Williston's hotels are tied to Bakken oil economics. When WTI crude falls below about $50 to $55 a barrel, operators cut drilling and stand down completion crews, and hotel occupancy collapses. The Bakken has already been through two major demand contractions (2014 to 2016 and 2020), and a third is always possible. Prices in the $60 to $80 range support modest, not aggressive, Bakken investment. A global demand shock (a recession or an OPEC production surge) or a faster U.S. energy transition could hurt demand for a long time.

Occupancy under pressure

Trailing occupancy of 52.5% is -5.8% on the year, continuing a slowdown from the recovery peak of about 55% in 2024 and 2025. ADR growth of +10.4% has more than offset it so far, but if occupancy keeps eroding while rate growth slows, RevPAR could turn negative in the near term.

Workforce housing competes for crews

A meaningful share of Bakken oilfield workers stay in man-camps, company crew housing and RV parks rather than hotels, particularly at peak activity. That limits how high hotel occupancy can go in a boom. As energy companies watch housing costs more closely, purpose-built crew housing keeps absorbing demand that might otherwise go to hotels.

A remote, undiversified economy

Unlike Minot (an Air Force base, a university, a retail trade area) or Bismarck (state government, a healthcare hub), Williston's economy has little beyond oil and gas. Without a large healthcare expansion, a university or a convention facility, the market cannot build demand independent of energy. That structural dependency is the biggest long-term risk in underwriting a hotel here.

Interest rates and financing

Higher interest rates keep pressure on hotel cap rates nationally and make refinancing more expensive. Williston's 14.1% cap rate reflects both attractive yields and how hard it is to find low-cost financing for hotels in an energy market. Acquisition financing at today's rates squeezes cash-on-cash returns and may delay a recovery in sales activity.

Outlook

The next 12 to 18 months

The near-term outlook is cautiously stable. With no new supply and demand anchored by production-phase oilfield work, which swings less than exploration, occupancy should settle between 50% and 54%. ADR is likely to keep rising as operators use better revenue management and no new branded hotels arrive. RevPAR should stay between $50 and $55 through 2026. The main upside would be more Bakken production on oil prices sustained above $65 a barrel, which would speed up completion-crew activity and extended-stay demand.

Two to four years

The medium term depends almost entirely on U.S. energy policy and global oil markets. If the Bakken keeps shifting toward lower-intensity production (fewer rigs, more maintenance work), hotel demand will likely stay range-bound instead of swinging as it did in the exploration era. Airport growth, with capacity for nearly 350,000 passengers a year against 208,990 today, is a structural chance to grow non-energy travel over time. Tourism investment around Fort Union and the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park could add leisure demand bit by bit.

Opportunities

• Extended-stay conversions. Several of the large independent extended-stay hotels (Prairie Suites, the Bakken Airport hotel, Buffalo Ridge Lodge) are unbranded and run below-market RevPAR. A brand conversion, renovation or repositioning could lift their yield significantly.
• Buying at high cap rates. The 14.1% market cap rate, with no new supply coming, makes an unusually favorable buying environment for patient investors with a view on energy markets.
• Revenue management. Strong ADR momentum despite softer occupancy suggests more room to grow yield for operators willing to invest in dynamic pricing.

Underwriting a Bakken hotel? Download the underwriting model, or request a hotel valuation.

Key takeaways

1. No pipeline means protected supply. With no hotel under construction, in planning or proposed, any recovery in energy demand goes to existing operators without dilution.
2. ADR is at an all-time high, well above its ten-year range. At $98.93 over twelve months, Williston's ADR clears the typical range's ceiling of $87.73 and matches the extreme maximum of $98.93. Momentum of +10.4% shows operators have moved from chasing volume to pricing for rate.
3. Softer occupancy is the energy cycle settling, not lasting damage. Williston's -5.8% occupancy drop mirrors Dickinson (-4.4%) and Minot (-5.4%), a corridor-wide response to calmer oilfield activity rather than a Williston problem. All three markets sit at about 52% to 53% occupancy.
4. A 14.1% cap rate pays for the risk. Williston's cap rate is among the highest of any rated hotel submarket in the Upper Midwest. For investors with a view on Bakken oil and a multi-year hold, today's pricing is a historically favorable entry point.
5. Extended stay and economy dominate, with a clear upper midscale gap. Over 40% of inventory is unbranded independent extended-stay or workforce housing, and the upper midscale and upscale tiers are thin for the market's rate level. TownePlace Suites (Marriott), Home2 Suites (Hilton) and Comfort Inn & Suites (Choice) are real openings for the right developer or conversion.

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Sources and method. Occupancy, ADR and RevPAR come only from CoStar market reports for Williston, Dickinson and Minot, North Dakota, as of April 2026. The hotel list comes from CoStar's property-level export (April 2026). Employer data comes from public records, company websites and market research. Pipeline research draws on the Marcus & Millichap Upper Midwest Development Tracker. All performance figures are trailing twelve months unless noted. Prepared by Reed Gizinski, Hotel Data Tracking, Marcus & Millichap.

This report is prepared for information only and is not investment advice. It is not an appraisal or a valuation.