If there was one eagerly awaited mega-event in the second year of COVID-19, it was COP26 in Glasgow.
Fully known as the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP26 was held at the Scottish Event Campus in Glasgow between Oct. 31 and Nov. 12. As anticipated, its international attendance boosted year-over-year occupancy and revenue per available room for hotels in Glasgow and neighboring cities.
Janice Fisher, general manager of the Ibis City Centre Glasgow and the Novotel Glasgow and joint chairperson of the Greater Glasgow Hotel Association, said, “COP26 was an excellent platform to showcase and demonstrate the capability of Glasgow as a destination in which to host events and welcome everyone to experience the city."
She said the city’s long-term focus on sustainable tourism will help it continue to grow and become a benchmark for others to follow.
The city’s hotel metrics during the event were impressive.
“In terms of success, every event contributes to the economic growth of the city. We are still living within the pandemic, and our agility in responding to our guests’ safety and needs is what will help us end the year on a high compared to where we started,” Fisher said.
For the week ending Nov. 14, the final week of the conference, Glasgow's hotel market posted occupancy of 87.5%, with average daily rate of 219.19 pounds sterling ($289.44) and revenue per available room of 191.72 pounds sterling, according to data from STR, CoStar’s hospitality analytics firm.
For the same period, Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland and only 50 minutes away from Glasgow by train, had hotel occupancy of 73.8%, ADR of 156.03 pounds sterling and RevPAR of 115.09 pounds sterling.
On the first Sunday of the conference, Oct. 31, Glasgow hotels posted ADR of 153.35 pounds sterling and RevPAR of 126.29 pounds sterling. The next Sunday, Nov. 7, those numbers were even higher — 223.22 pounds sterling and 216.03 pounds sterling, respectively.
Edinburgh hotels on Oct. 31 posted ADR of 149.42 pounds sterling and RevPAR of 126.94 pounds sterling; and for Nov. 7, 186.46 pounds sterling and 148.11 pounds sterling, respectively.
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Sean Morgan, director of research for Tourism Insights, part of CoStar’s hotel analytics firm STR, said as a discussion on the pressing concerns of climate change, the event could be “considered to be moderately successful, and Glasgow proved to be an adequate but perhaps not stellar host destination.”
“Issues included long queuing for delegates to get into the venue, public-sector work strikes, public apathy, as much of the city was in COP26 lockdown with closed roads and reduced public transport, and finally limited and ultimately very expensive accommodation,” he said.
He added two cruise ships had been brought in from the Baltics to accommodate an overspill of approximately 3,000 COP26 attendees.
“There were stories about accommodation providers upping their prices by factors of 10 to capitalize on the high demand in the city,” Morgan said.
“Many delegates as a result chose or were forced to stay away from the city and, hence, Edinburgh also benefited greatly, as did many operators in the broader surrounds [of Glasgow],” he said.