INFOGRAPHICS: London hotel ratings don’t match prices, says Trivago

The cost per night of hotels in London boroughs does not automatically equal high visitor ratings, according to a new report from hotel search website Trivago.co.uk.

The London Neighbourhoods report analysed data from nine central London boroughs, to help create a range of neighbourhood guides for tourists in the capital, and found that although hotels in the most expensive City of London (£220 per night on average) did score a high of 86.24 out of 100, Southwark (82.58) and Towers Hamlets (79.28) were rated second and third respectively, despite ranking a lowly third and sixth on the cost scale (£177 in Southwark, £163 for Tower Hamlets).

Unsurprisingly, the most expensive boroughs overall were the most central, with Westminster following the City’s lead with an average of £204, Kensington & Chelsea on £173, Islington on £165, and Hammersmith & Fulham at £114.

The study was not limited by traditional hotel properties either, with aparthotels, hostels, B&Bs, private apartments and holiday homes also considered.

While hotels make up the biggest share of the total accommodation in each borough, City of London saw 31 per cent of its rooms made up by aparthotels (the highest percentage of all boroughs), while private apartments available to stay in reached 19 per cent in Islington. In Newham, Hammersmith & Fulham, B&Bs were the most popular property available (19 per cent) after hotels (53 per cent).

Nationality-wise, German visitors to London prefer hotels in the east of the city, while Italians prefer the west. Italians were the most popular nationalities in Camden, Hammersmith & Fulham, Westminster, and Kensington & Chelsea; while Germans were top visitors in Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Islington and Newham.

Americans were found to be more likely to stick to the central and most expensive boroughs of City of London, Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea, but the French tend to head further out to Camden, Islington, Newham and Hammersmith & Fulham.

Denise Bartlett, from Trivago’s communications UK & Ireland, said: “Our London Neighbourhoods series aims to help first-time visitors decide where to stay, based on average hotel price, rating and accommodation categorisation. It can be daunting deciding where to stay in a city as large and segmented as London, but by breaking the city down into boroughs we found clearly defined differences between each neighbourhood.”

First founded in Dusseldorf, online hotel search site Trivago features over 1 million hotels across 250 global booking sites, including over 190 million ratings and 14 million photos. It now operates across 55 countries in 33 languages.