Chain hotels remain "robust", says report

London chain hotels are still making a profit, despite a significant drop in performance during September, according to the latest figures from hospitality consultancy TRI hospitality.

Occupancy in London fell by 10 percentage points to 78.2% and average room rate fell by 9.5% to £86.73. Revenue per available room was nearly 20% down.

The report said four-star hotels had suffered the most, with revenue per available room down by 26%. But they would be the first to recover when business returned, it added.

TRI criticised "alarmist" reports on the situation. Operations director Mark Dickens said: "There seems to be a relish from both the media and the industry in reports that the hotel market has been decimated. I don't believe that.

"TV reports such as ‘45% of Americans who would have stayed in London did not after 11 September' may be accurate, but they give a misleading impression of the actual market loss."

Outside the capital, the impact of the events of 11 September was minimal. There was a drop of just 1.4 percentage points in occupancy to 74.5%, which was made up for by a growth in achieved room rate of 3.3% to £63.08. Overall revenue per available room was 1.3 percentage points ahead of last year.

The report emphasised the robustness of the chain-operated sector: "Any hotel that can lose market like this and still be operating at 78% occupancy has a pretty strong foundation."

The survey used a sample of 402 three- and four-star chain hotels with an average size of 140 bedrooms.