£70,000 a night: could it happen?
Picture yourself on the telephone to Claridge's. You've asked for suite 318, your favourite. The receptionist tells you in the customary bright voice that it is available and that there is a special price for the whole of June - it will be £70,000 a night, an £8,000 reduction on rack rate.
When you check in the following week, you decide to save a little money by eating out at the Paddington Hilton rather than the more expensive Claridge's dining room.
A beaming maître d' at the Hilton is happy to offer you and your partner the bargain set dinner at £880 each.
Welcome to Britain, 2052. If inflation advances at the same pace as it has in the half-century since the Queen came to the throne, then these are the sort of prices you will be paying.
In 1952, suite 318 at Claridge's was £16 16s a night. Now it is £1,150. That means the price has risen roughly 68.5 times. Multiply 1,150 by 68.5 and you get £78,775.
Not everywhere will be as expensive, of course. The Goring could do you a room for £30,000 (1952 single bedroom price, £1 7s 6d; 2002, £200).
The meal at the Paddington Hilton (in 1952, the Great Western Royal) has increased from 12s 6d in 1952 to £20 today, a relatively modest 44 times.
At the Royal Clarence hotel in Exeter, a single bedroom and breakfast would have cost £1 1s in 1952, compared with £105 now, a nicely exact increase of 100 times. So if you calculate a similar inflation increase in the next 50 years, expect to pay £10,500 to stay there in 2052.
At the Chester Grosvenor you could have stayed for £1 3s in a single in 1952, including breakfast. Now it would cost you £160 without breakfast, a 139-fold price increase. Project this forward and you could be paying £22,240 a night in 2052.
- Most prices in this article have been calculated using the British Hospitality Association's 1952 official guide to hotels and restaurants.
by David Harris
