Economic recovery 'critical' for regional hotels

Revealing its HotStats survey of hotel trading figures for January, the consultancy firm revealed it was the third year in a row in which hotels outside London had seen growth in revenue per available room (RevPAR) for the first month of the year cancelled out by rising costs.

Regional hotels actually fared better than their London counterparts with a 2 per cent increase in room rate leading to a 1 per cent rise in RevPAR while, in the capital, revenue per available room actually dropped by 4 per cent compared to January 2012.

However David Bailey, deputy managing director at TRI Hospitality Consulting, said economic pressures were continuing to keep bedroom servicing charges and other costs high, impacting on regional hotel's profits.

“With provincial hotel performance so closely dictated by UK economic output, the recent news that Moody’s has downgraded the nation’s credit rating due to sluggish growth over the next few years will not have been welcome news. With the poor start to 2013, on the back of a fifth consecutive year of provincial profit decline, it is critical that the economy begins to recover in 2013 if this general trend is to be reversed,” he said.