July hotel figures offer encouragement

Demand for UK hotel accommodation picked up in July after a steep year-on-year fall the previous month.

The latest data from TRI Hospitality Consulting reveals a drop of 4.2% in revenue per available room (revpar) to £52.98 in July, compared with £55.30 during the same month last year.

But this was an improvement on June's figure, when revpar was 10% down.

Achieved room rates during July dropped by 2.4% to £68.92, down from £70.61 in July 2001. Occupancy fell by 1.4 percentage points to 76.9%.

In London the decline also appears to be bottoming out. Revpar here was down by 5.8% during July at £72.94. Occupancy was 2.5% off at 83.4%, while achieved room rates was 2.9% behind last year at £87.50.

In June London room rates fell by slightly more than 10%.

UK provincial hotels saw a small dip in occupancy of 0.4 percentage points to 74.6%, while achieved room rates dropped by 1.5% from £62.58 to £61.66. This led to a 2.7% fall in revpar in July to £46, compared with a 7% drop in June.