The United Kingdom’s hotel industry is beginning to show the most positive signs its seen in more than a year.
“I am delighted to be able to present some more positive data than we have seen, really since the start of the pandemic,” said Thomas Emanuel, director, STR, CoStar’s hospitality analytics firm.
“[U.K.] hotels could fully reopen their doors on 17 May, and the impact of those restrictions being eased are clear and immediate to see,” he said.
He said that since that date weekdays troughs are today showing higher occupancy numbers than were former weekends peaks. That pattern of troughs and peaks largely is still happening, but at higher levels overall.
Performance was helped by the half-term school vacations, with occupancy on May 29 reaching 69%, a number Emanuel said is “dizzying.”
Average daily rate duly replicated that increase, albeit a few days later, with overall ADR on June 4 reaching £78 ($108.79), “higher than at any point since the COVID-19 pandemic began.”
That revenue per available room is still less than 60% of its 2019 levels, which Emanuel said underlines the long road still ahead.
Growth is coming from Regional U.K., he said, not London, which continues to struggle.
For instance, the county of Dorset, famed for its Jurassic Coast and novelist Thomas Hardy country, saw occupancy of more than 90% on a daily basis since the start of June, while the Lake District, in the north of England and famed for Beatrix Potter and its scenery, posted daily occupancy over 87% for the same period.
Feeling Good
Those numbers should even improve as the country sets itself for another summer of staycations and no international travel.
“For the first month since the start of the pandemic, [the U.K.] has no red bubbles,” Emanuel said, referring to color coding that refers to markets with less than 30% occupancy.
London is at 33%, he said.
But there is some good news on the horizon for London, with business on the books looking more robust, with the U.K. trending better than its mainland European neighbors.
For more of Emanuel’s insights into U.K. performance data, please watch the video.
Editor’s note: The video included in this article was filmed by Thomas Emanuel, director at STR, on June 21, 2021, and edited and produced by CoStar Group.