First London RevPAR growth since August 2008. Wednesday, 30th December 2009 Source : TRI Hospitality Consulting

The sample of 115 full-service London hotels reported a third successive month of average room occupancy growth, increasing year-onyear from 79.3% to 84.0%.

The weak Pound, mild winter weather and widespread discounts helped drive the best retail sales in London since October 2006. London remains a top retail destination and, with the sales starting early, November’s footfall increased by 3.6% year-on-year (source: Synovate).

“November is historically a strong month for branded chain hotels because of the high number of business and conference guests. Coupled with strong leisure visitor numbers and an exceptional retail performance, there is mounting evidence that London is getting to grips with the recession,” said Jonathan Langston, managing director, TRI Hospitality Consulting.

Compared to November 2008, RevPAR in London increased from £95.36 to £102.59, equivalent to a 7.6% uplift. Significantly, this marks the first growth in RevPAR since August 2008.

However, RevPAR remains 4.4% below the capital’s November 2007 performance of £107.33. The London average room rate performance exhibited a similar trend, increasing year-on-year from £120.28 to £122.16.

In the provinces average room rate, relative to 2008, fell for the 15th consecutive month to £70.48 in November, a decline of 6.4%. Average room occupancy dropped by 1.4 percentage points to 69.1% and rooms revenue declined by 8.3% to £48.73 per available room.

HotStats unique rooms market segmentation analysis highlights that the decline in average room rate is due to price-sensitive demand across the market sectors. The corporate and leisure sector rates fell year-on-year by 7.3% and 7.5% respectively.

Daily profit per available room – expressed as income before fixed charges (IBFC) – grew by 7.5% to £69.47 in the capital compared to a 12.8% decrease to £35.08 in the provinces.

BAA recording first traffic growth since March 2008BAA, the operator of seven UK airports including Heathrow and Gatwick, handled a total of 9.9 million passengers in November, an increase of 0.8% year-on-year. Overall BAA reported an increase in European charter traffic and long haul routes (excluding North Atlantic routes), up 4.7% and 4.1% respectively. North Atlantic traffic was down 6.8% compared to November 2008.

Most notably, November’s traffic figures represent a six-month period of steady improvement and mark the first time since March 2008 that BAA’s airports have recorded a net monthly increase in traffic.

The UK’s airport hub experienced the strongest growth in passenger traffic for November with Heathrow growing by 1.1% and Gatwick increasing by 4.5%, a trend that has helped boost hotel performance. Average occupancy grew year-on-year by 0.2 percentage points to 74.2% in Heathrow and increased by 1.4 percentage points to 69.9% in Gatwick.