Hotel revenue per available room stalls in April

Hotel revenue per available room (revpar) fell by an average 0.3% in April, according to the latest HotStats survey by Tri Hospitality Consulting.

The good news is that the decline (to £56.83) stemmed chiefly from the fact that Easter fell in April, rather than March as it did last year.

London hotels bore the brunt of the blip in growth as revpar fell by 2.5% to £74.86.

Although they boosted occupancy by 3.4 percentage points to 82%, this failed to offset a 6.6% slump in room rate to £91.24.

A different picture emerged in the provinces, where hotels increased revpar by 1.2% to £48.42.

A 2.8% rise in room rate to £68.51 more than compensated for a slight fall in occupancy (of 1.1 percentage points) to 70.7%.

Despite the April stutter, Tri pointed out that revpar has grown at a steady, above-inflation rate in the first four months of the year (by 4.8% in London and by 3.7% in the regions).

"Although still early in the year, this is firm evidence that the hotel industry is still enjoying improved sales albeit at a slower rate than in the past couple of years," said Jonathan Langston, managing director at Tri.

See more more trends in the hotel sector here >>

By Angela Frewin

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