London Makes Strong Start in 2007
UK Chain Hotels Market Review - January 2007
MARCH 14, 2007. Sales at hotels in London were up by almost a third during the month of July 2006, according to the latest data from TRI Hospitality Consulting's HotStats survey.
Room revenue per available room was up 14.8 per cent to lb75.88 as average room rates surged by 12.8 per cent to break through the lb100 barrier and hit lb104.09. Occupancy was also up, rising 1.3 points to 72.9 per cent.
'London has consistently been a strong performer over the last three years and it looks set to have a fourth consecutive record year,' said Jonathan Langston, managing director of TRI Hospitality Consulting.
Provincial hotels, which have shown steadier progress than the UK capital, saw room revpar rise by 4.8 per cent to lb40.66. Again it was mainly rate driving this increase with a 3.3 per cent rise to lb69.35. Occupancy was up just 0.8 points to hit 58.6 per cent.
'January is historically one of the weaker months for hotels and it will take until after Easter before there is a clear trend for this year. But the indications so far are for a healthy sales performance at least,' said Langston.
The strong London figures have helped lift the overall performance for the 496 properties in the HotStats sample of chain hotels.
Room revpar had an almost double digit increase with a rise of 9.3 per cent to hit lb52.92. Most of this was due to room rate which was up 7.8 per cent with occupancy ahead by just 0.9 points to reach 63.6 per cent.
Other data less encouraging
Official Government statistics showed that during the last three months of 2006 overseas visitor numbers were up by five per cent to hit 7.46 million. The strongest source market was Western Europe with a six per cent rise in numbers to 4.67 million.
All monitored source markets were in positive territory, however, with North America the weakest with a rise of two per cent to 889,000 during the period. Spending by all overseas visitors rose by three per cent to hit lb3.57bn.
UKinbound, the official trade body representing the inbound tourism industry in the UK, found that visitor arrivals were up 4.2 per cent in December with forward bookings in that month up 3.2 per cent compared with the same month a year earlier.
The organisation, which represents over 250 companies, said December was a good month but pointed out that the annualised growth was 3.2 per cent for visitor numbers and came on top of a drop during 2005 as a whole.
Looking further ahead, figures for passenger traffic during January at BAA, the operator of seven UK airports, showed an increase of 1.3 per cent.
'Chain hotels seem to be outperforming the tourist market as a whole, indicating that independent hotels and guest houses are likely to have had a poorer year, relative to the bigger companies in the HotStats survey,' said Langston.
For more information contact Jonathan Langston on 020 7486 5191 or email [email protected].
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