London hotel market performance slows in May

The London hotel market could be cooling down after a strong start to 2007 that has seen room rates soar.

TRI Hospitality Consulting's UK Chain Hotels Market Review for May shows London hoteliers kept their prices firm during the month and grew room rate 10.7% to £112.89 (2006: £101.94).

However, although there was a 2.6 percentage point fall in occupancy levels to 82.2 (2006: 84.8), this was not enough to prevent revenue per available (revpar) climbing 7.3% to £92.81 (2006: £86.46).

David Bailey, director of TRI, said: "The rate of London's revpar growth has moderated, which may give rise to a more flexible approach to pricing in the future."

Overall, UK hotels saw a fall in occupancy of 0.5 points in the month to 76.6% (2006: 77.2%) as a decline in guests at hotels in the provinces was arrested.

With overall room rate up 6.5% to £87.16 (£81.85), revpar at UK hotels in May climbed 5.7% to £66.79 (2006: £63.18).

View more trends and data news on CaterereSearch here >>

Industry data: TRI HotStats - monthly UK hotel figures >>

Bench: London revpar rises by nearly 15% >>

By Chris Druce

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