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UK hotels yet to recover from a ‘battering’ in 2003
London hoteliers “have barely made up ground lost due to last year’s exceptional circumstances”, says a leading hotel consultancy firm.
The performance of London hotels during April compared to last year is impressive, but the trend masks underlying problems with maintaining room rates, according to PKF.
Occupancy rates were up 21% year-on-year in April to 73% and average room rates rose 10% to around £99. However, room rates plummeted more than 10% in April last year amid uncertainty during the outbreak of conflict in Iraq and Sars. This means that little ground has been made up.
Outside London there was a similar story. Occupancy rose 1.5% in April to 69% and average room rates rose 3% to around £61 in the UK’s regional hotels. But room rates fell 7.6% in April last year, so hoteliers have made up less than half the ground lost.
PKF hotel consultancy services director, Robert Barnard said: “On the surface these figures look very healthy, with positive figures across the board and exceptional leaps in occupancy and rooms yield performance in London.
“But when you dig deeper and compare the results to those for April 2003, then its clear that room rate is an issue for the whole of the UK, with levels not recovering from the battering they took last year due to the impact of the war on Iraq and the Sars outbreak.”
Mr Barnard predicts an increase in room rates later in the summer, because he says hotels will attempt to rebuild occupancy rates before they increase room rates.
Report by Ginny McGrath
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