Glasgow hotels buck Scottish downturn
Hoteliers in Scotland's biggest city said last week that occupancies had been largely unaffected by either the foot-and-mouth epidemic or the American economic slowdown.
Glasgow hotel occupancy for the year so far is slightly up at 67.8% on the same period last year. Average room rate is up by 8.8% to £60.67, and revenue per available bedroom is up by 10.6% to £41.10.
The figures, the latest available from the PKF UK trends survey, show that Glasgow is not part of a reported overall 20% downturn of tourism in Scotland.
Scott Taylor, director of Glasgow tourist board's convention bureau, said: "Sixty per cent of our convention business is from the medical sector and these people know that their hands and feet won't drop off once they touch down in the UK."
Nearly 2,000 hotel bedrooms were added to the city last year.
Melvin Gold, managing director of hotel consultancy services at PKF, commented: "Room supply is coming on, but it's very justifiable considering how Glasgow has developed throughout the 1990s. The question now is, can Glasgow as an economic market grow enough to absorb it? Until now, the answer has always been ‘yes'."
Three hotels with a total of more than 500 bedrooms are to be built in the coming months and the tourist board forecasts a total of 12,600 hotel bedrooms by the end of next year.
But some hoteliers questioned whether the new bedrooms were of the right type to increase Glasgow's capacity to host business conventions, which bring about £90m into the city every year.
There are only 362 five-star bedrooms compared with 5,384 three-star bedrooms in Glasgow.
David Ibbotson, general manager of the four-star, 117-bedroom Millennium Copthorne, said: "Glasgow is in need of international players, not domestic hoteliers. We need to become a convention city.
"If we had a 1,000-seater convention hotel, the pot would get bigger and we would all get spin-off."
Klaus Zsille, general manager of the five-star, 319-bedroom Hilton, said: "The highest growth has been in budget hotels, which are in the wrong market for conventions. I'm surprised how lucky we are with the amount of convention business.
"It's funny we are still so successful. For the future of Glasgow, we need at least one five-star, 600- to 800-bedroom hotel. It's a pity it wasn't done before. It wouldn't have been a risk four years ago. Now it is."
Taylor said 16 sites had been earmarked for five-star hotel development.
by Ben Walker ben.walker@rbi.co.uk
Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 7-13 June
