London hotels more popular than New York and Paris
According to analysis by business advisory firm Deloitte, occupancy at London hotels rose by 2.1 per cent to 82.1 per cent compared to 2009.
London hotels’ steady recovery from the recession has resulted in the market ranking behind only Sydney (83.5 per cent) and Seoul (82.4 per cent) in terms of occupancy.
Alex Kyriakidis, global managing director of tourism, hospitality & leisure at Deloitte, said: “RevPAR growth gained momentum in the capital during 2010 and the results were good despite the current economic uncertainty facing the UK economy. 2011 may prove to be more challenging, however, as the city starts to see new hotel supply come on board in the run up to the 2012 London Olympic Games.”
But despite achieving the highest occupancy ranking in Europe, ahead of Edinburgh (76.6 per cent), Amsterdam (75 per cent) and Glasgow (74.3 per cent), London hotels’ comparatively low average room rate means it sits at ninth position on the global revPAR ranking index with $161, a 9.5 per cent increase in 2009.
Sector recovery
Kyriakidis added that overall, hotels across Europe performed better than expected during the year.
“Against a background of a sluggish economic recovery and austerity measures introduced across Europe, hotel performance recovered relatively well during 2010, with revPAR up just short of 10 per cent to €63.
“Although this is still some €11 below the revPAR achieved in 2007, this is good news for the industry and as reported in the global rankings, there were some star performers in Europe.”
The most expensive cities in the world in terms of room rate were found to be Venice ($318) and Geneva ($219), which unsurprisingly finished second and third respectively in the revPAR ranking index.
