UK hotels suffer 'sluggish' start to 2013, bad weather to blame

According to preliminary figures for January released by hotel consultancy firm PKF, revenue per available room (RevPAR) dropped by 5.6 per cent in London to £76.31, down from £80.87 a year earlier.

The news was less bleak in the regions but RevPAR also fell - by 0.1 per cent to £29.96.

"This is not the start to the year that the hotel industry was hoping for," said Robert Barnard, a partner at the London-based firm.

Corporate market​

With operators already fearing a downturn in hotel demand in so-called Empty 2013​ following last year's busy events calendar, what appears to have particularly harmed the industry in the first month of the year is the timing of holidays which determine when all-important corporate bookers​ come back on-stream.

"The poor weather that much of the country experienced in January appears to have hit occupancy, and there’s very little that operators can do in the circumstances," said Barnard.

"The timing of the New Year Bank Holiday didn’t help either, and effectively meant that the corporate market didn't restart until the second week of January."

Help​

In London, the problem was driven by a severe decline in occupancy (5.8 per cent) to 67.9 per cent which cancelled out a small rise in room rate to £112.49 from £112.27 a year ago.

Elsewhere, a 1.7 per cent drop in occupancy was balanced with a 1.7 per cent rise in room rates. However the drop in occupancy to 56.2 per cent just outweighed the rise in room rates to £53.33.

Barnard said the figures showed hoteliers in both London and the regions were in need of greater support.

January is traditionally a quiet month so these results are unlikely to be make or break for hoteliers. However, with the economy likely to remain fragile for the foreseeable future, the industry needs all the help it can get at the moment," he concluded.