London hotels back on track thanks to rate increase

London hotels produced a 6.4% increase in total revenues per available room (trevpar) in September following two months of negative year-on-year comparisons due to the Olympics effect, according to the latest UK Chain Hotels Market Review from HotStats.

Gross operating profit (goppar) also grew by 8.2%, mainly as a result of the 8.9% increase in average room rate (ARR) to £158.17 from £145.22 in September 2012. While there was a slight occupancy decrease of 0.6 percentage points to 88%, revenue per available room (revpar) increased 8.2% to £139.15.

Meanwhile, provincial hoteliers experienced the fourth consecutive month of increases in all key measure with trevpar and goppar up last month by 2.4% and 2.7% respectively.

Revpar growth of 4.8% was due to a 3.8% increase in ARR to £744.11 from £71.39 and a rise in occupancy by 0.7 percentage points to 79.9%.

The HotStats survey is carried out amongst 624 chain hotels with an average of 177 bedrooms, primarily in the three- and four-star sectors.