Hotel News
The economic downtown has helped to contribute to a drop in income across the Hotel industry across the world. Deloitte have carried out a study of Hotels located in European major cities and have discovered that Spain has been the hardest hit. Spain has seen visitors reduce from it’s key markets in particular the United Kingdom. Spain has been perennially popular with the British since the 1970s, with vast numbers of hotel rooms being block allocated each year to the major holiday travel companies. Whilst many hotel rooms are still seeing good occupancy rates, most hoteliers are reporting that they are having to rent rooms for lower margins. Many travel companies are selling holidays at vastly reduced prices and a good proportion of the reduction is secured by the hotel room being obtained for a lower cost. Faced with either letting the rooms being left idle, many hoteliers are excepting lower rental amounts. The increased cost of aviation fuel and air transport in general has seen many people staying at home, this of course has a direct impact on the hotel market.
The travel industry has suffered considerably with air transport down on previous years, cities at the centre of Spain’s transport hub have been the hardest hit. Barcelona & Madrid in particular have seen their revenue per room drop by between 20-30% in the first none months of this year. The average reduction per hotel room in Europe is approximately 19% with an average room price now standing at fifty eight Euros per night. Cities located in the euro zone fared a little better with the decline in hotel room rates at 16.8%, whilst outside of the euro zone, the decline was higher at 21.9%. Hotels located in : Dublin, Athens, Düsseldorf, Milan, Moscow, Prague & Zurich, fared the worst.
Interestingly, the city reporting the highest hotel occupancy rate was London, with 80% of rooms being occupied. This confirms trends in the United Kingdom, that British families for the first time in decades are deciding the holiday at home. Hotels & holiday properties in the United Kingdom are much in demand, Brits are finding that, because of the weakness of sterling that travelling abroad has now become very expensive and that British Hotels & guest houses offer better value for money. The weakness of the pound has also resulted in Britain being a good bet for overseas travellers who are now seeing their local currency travel further, this has created extra demand with hotel chains coming up with novel ideas such as the pop up hotel as a means of meeting customers needs.
London hotels are currently offering some great deals to travellers with the cost of rooms cheaper than last year. Signs of the recession ended are now being trumpeted almost every day and certainly there are still new hotels being planned in most major European cities. According to STR Global, a market leader in Hotel statistics, there are five hundred and seventy hotels in the development pipeline at the moment which consists of over ninety six thousand rooms. The key locations for new hotels include London, Berlin & Hamburg. Interestingly and perhaps as a sign that the recession is ending, the upscale end of the market sees the most rooms being planned. Over 26% of the pipeline can be attributed to this sector. But perhaps in a sign that the market is becoming polarised, the economy section equates of 21 %. Certainly in London, there is an increased demand for budget hotels offering fixed room price per night. The budget hotel operators in the United Kingdom have been doing to a good deal to raise the profile of the budget hotel room and increase the public’s perception of the product on offer, demand more for less seems to be the message and a sustained program of refurbishment has seen a surge of interest in the budget market.
rts are pre made, steel-frame units, then shipped to the site for construction). This method can help to reduce build times by as much as 50% and can help hoteliers react quickly to hotel room needs. Pop up hotels can be used for conferences, festivals, pop concerts, anywhere, where there is a demand for accommodation at a budget price. One of the added benefits of this designs is that there are semi permanent structures, if demand drops off, they can be deconstructed and moved to a new site.
A number of UK hotel chains are spear heading the use of pop up hotels, Travel lodge have already opened one in West London and they have plans to open a further forty between now and 2020. The construction method does sound a bit like building with Lego, but as Travel lodge are involved then the concept is definitely worth taking seriously. There is no doubt that although money does not reach as far as it did a few years ago, even at the budget end of the hotel industry consumers are becoming more discerning. Certainly there are large number of persons wishing to visit music festivals that have previously been put off by the rather Spartan living conditions who will relish the opportunity of staying in any kind of modern clean building. Another area where pop up hotels could come in to their own, is in 2012 when accommodation demand in London will hit a high because of the Olympic games. If the United Kingdom is successful in bidding for other major sporting events, such as the world cup, then hoteliers can expect similar demand for good quality budget hotel accommodation and we may see pop up hotels come in to their own.
