PKF report: Promising December for UK hotels

UK regional hotels ended the year positively, despite the industry’s many challenges in 2001, with occupancy rising and only a small drop in room rate against 2000 figures, according to PKF’s preliminary results for December. The performance of London hotels, whilst considerably down on December 2000 figures, also revealed a gradual clawback from the dark days of October and November 2001.

In the 506 regional hotels covered in the PKF survey, there were clear signs of the sector’s underlying strength, despite the foot-and-mouth epidemic, the US recession, and the 11 September terrorist attacks. In December, room occupancy rates were up 0.7% on last year’s figures, room rate dropped slightly by 2.2%, and rooms yield was down by 1.5%. When the south east’s airport hotels’ figures are excluded from the overall UK regional sample, the room occupancy and rooms yield indicators both reveal an improvement on December 2000 figures.

The December figures for London revealed a continuing improvement on the November 2001 figures with room occupancy rates down 11.8% on December 2000, room rate down 7.9% and rooms yield down by 18.2%. Whilst these figures will not have guaranteed a happy Christmas for London hoteliers, they are a considerable improvement on the 27% and 34.1% drops in rooms yield for November and October 2001 respectively.

Melvin Gold, Managing Director of Hotel Consultancy Services at PKF, said: “The regional hotel performance figures are very encouraging overall and, in the main, hoteliers will take comfort from these figures. There are still signs of weakness, especially around the airports in the south east of the country and at the upper end of the market. However, we do not believe the industry will be complacent about these results – 2002’s out-turn will depend on UK economic performance as much as anything else.

“In London there is also some evidence to show that occupancy rates, especially at the top end of the market, are starting to recover ground. The natural inclination of hoteliers in difficult times such as these is to concentrate on building back occupancy and so these figures will provide encouragement as to current strategy, particularly since the occupancy build-back is being achieved without signs of further weakening room rates.”

Preliminary Data for December 2001

Final data for November 2001

Definition of the key terms used in the surveys table are given below:

Rooms yield: room occupancy multiplied by the average achieved room rate (also known as RevP).