Cold snap brings benefits to hoteliers

03 February 2009
Cold snap brings benefits to hoteliers

Hotels near Heathrow and Gatwick airport were all fully booked last night after the adverse weather conditions in the capital sent people fleeing to them to bed down for the night.

All hotels around Heathrow airport were fully booked from around lunchtime yesterday, after snow brought all flights to a standstill.

The 400-bedroom Radisson Edwardian hotel, 350 bedroom Sheraton Skyline, 100-room Ramada London Heathrow, 800 room Park Inn, 391 room Marriott and both Premier Inn hotels were filled to busting and still receiving enquiry calls late into the evening.

The surge in hotel bookings will come as some relief to hoteliers experiencing difficult trading conditions, with many hotel companies receiving enquiries from other hotels who wished to book out their rooms in order to accommodate more stranded customers.

A saleswoman at Premier Inn said many people who were based in Greater London were not making the journey home, but choosing to stay at a hotel for the night instead.

Some hotels in central London were also benefiting from customers who preferred to remain in the city centre rather than brave the journey home.

Andrew Coney, general manager at the Tower hotel near Tower Bridge said his hotel was fully booked yesterday, which offset any inconveniences by staff unable to get into work, or any cancellations they had had.

"The City has really picked up thanks to the weather and we're fully booked tonight- we just need to make sure everyone is in tomorrow to serve the full hotel its breakfast", he said.

Stefan Soinichsin, general manager at One Aldwych in central London, said the hotel had been affected adversely by the weather with private room cancellations, some food and beverage cancellations, and postponement of room reservations.

"We've lost a little bit, but all our staff made it in today, with some even walking for hours. We have a very dedicated team here", he said.

Choice Hotels International ends franchises with Real Hotel Group >>


Hotel insolvencies double; worse to come>>

Revpar slumps by 27.7% at London hotels >>

Cromwell Crown named by TripAdvisor's as UK's dirtiest hotel >>

By Gemma Sharkey

E-mail your comments to Gemma Sharkey here.

[Newsletters For the latest hospitality news, sign up for our e-mail newsletters.

The Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email

Start the working day with The Caterer’s free breakfast briefing email

Sign Up and manage your preferences below

Check mark icon
Thank you

You have successfully signed up for the Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email and will hear from us soon!

Jacobs Media is honoured to be the recipient of the 2020 Queen's Award for Enterprise.

The highest official awards for UK businesses since being established by royal warrant in 1965. Read more.

close

Ad Blocker detected

We have noticed you are using an adblocker and – although we support freedom of choice – we would like to ask you to enable ads on our site. They are an important revenue source which supports free access of our website's content, especially during the COVID-19 crisis.

trade tracker pixel tracking