LONDON— The current year for the European hotel trade is likely to be one of recovery rather than growth, predicts STR Global, the leading provider of market information to the global hotel industry.
“With a return to RevPAR growth last December, European hoteliers can look forward to some improvement in market conditions this year provided overall economic circumstances do not further deteriorate”, said Elizabeth Randall, managing director of STR Global. As seen in the table below, positive change in year-on-year occupancy is the main reason for the improving position of revenue per available room (RevPAR) in Europe.
European hotel performance (Percentage change December 2009 from December 2008, euros)
|
|
Occupancy
|
Average Daily Rate
|
RevPAR
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total Europe
|
3.1
|
-0.9
|
2.2
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Athens
|
10.3
|
-6.7
|
2.9
|
|
Berlin
|
1.1
|
-4.1
|
-3.0
|
|
Lisbon
|
14.1
|
-6.0
|
7.2
|
|
London
|
6.8
|
11.4
|
19.1
|
|
Madrid
|
4.6
|
-11.5
|
-7.4
|
|
Oslo
|
0.7
|
19.4
|
20.3
|
|
Rome
|
9.1
|
-16.1
|
-8.5
|
|
Stockholm
|
4.8
|
3.1
|
8.0
|
Source: STR Global
“This news must be mitigated by the fact that comparisons are with very poor performances in the last quarter of 2008,” Randall explains, “but with demand beginning to trend upwards and supply holding steady there is room for cautious optimism.”
Occupied rooms, or demand, had begun to decline well before the financial crisis triggered by the collapse of Lehmann Brothers in September 2008 as the graph below illustrates. On the other hand, the change in the supply of total available rooms in Europe per STR Global’s Census database is flat. STR Global’s Pipeline Reports show that expected new hotel rooms to enter the market in the coming years represents only 1.4 percent of existing stock. Compare this to 9.8 percent in the Middle East/Africa region or 7.3 percent in the USA and Europe’s position starts to look more favourable.
12-month moving average percentage Change in Demand (occupied rooms) & Supply (available rooms)
Source: STR Global
About STR Global:
STR Global provides clients—including hotel operators, developers, financiers, analysts and suppliers to the hotel industry—access to hotel research with regular and custom reports covering Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and South America. STR Global provides a single source of global hotel data covering daily and monthly performance data, forecasts, annual profitability, pipeline and census information. STR Global is part of the STR family of companies and is proudly associated with STR, RRC, STR Analytics and HotelNewsNow.com. For more information, please visit www.strglobal.com.
Media contacts:
Konstanze Auernheimer
Director of Marketing
STR Global
KAuernheimer@strglobal.com
+44 (0)207 922 1961
Jeff Higley
VP, Digital Media & Communications
STR/STR Global/HotelNewsNow.com
jeff@smithtravelresearch.com
+1 (615) 824-8664 ext. 3318
