Despite an overall drop in occupancy of the UK’s hotel market last month, London is still leading the market both in the UK and the whole of Europe.
A survey of 462 hotels by TRI Hospitality Consulting has shown London occupancy rates fell in November by 0.5 percentage points to 85.7% in 2007. This is against a drop of one percentage point in the UK’s provincial hotels to 72.9% in the same period.
This is in line with the overall trend for the UK market. In the first 11 months of 2007, London’s hotel occupancy rates fell by 0.1 percentage point to 83.4 as opposed to a 0.2% drop to 72.2% in the rest of the UK.
Despite the falling occupancy, London’s hotels have seen profit growth of 7.9% to £82.19 per available room while there has also been an 8.9% increase in average room rates to £125.85.
TRI Hospitality Consulting managing director Jonathan Langstone said: “London’s hotel market continued its outstanding run of rate, revenue per available room and profit growth in November. Average occupancy remained the highest in Europe.
“There are no signs that falling overseas spend or economic uncertainty are having an impact on the London hotel market.”
Langstone added that VisitBritain had predicted a drop in the number of visitors to the UK in 2007 by 3.1%, with spend down by 1.3% compared with 2006.
However, the tourism board is predicting a 2% increase in visitor numbers for 2008, while visitor spend is predicted to increase by 2.4%.
However, UKinbound is more cautious about the market for 2008 due to concerns about both the UK and the US economies.