"for a line chart, we do not always have to start the axis at zero" Sure. But, as you point out, starting it elsewhere has meaning. "it sends the impression that the drop is not important but it is the wrong perception because the occupancy rate is just never going to dip below say 50%" That's exactly what I was taking exception to. During this recession there indeed have been hotels that went *way* below 50%. For example, in Dubai there were hotels that went down to 30%. The US average was just a hair above 50%. So for this dataset, a graph implying that you just can't go any lower seems to say that these hotels were exceptionally hurt when they were actually doing better than many.

I'm actually not a huge fan of the line chart either. With the axis set from 60 thru 74% the graph makes it look like there was this plumet from nearly full to nearly empty when there was only about a 10% change in occupancy.