Hotel rates paid for business and leisure travel increased over last year both globally and in North America.

Global and North America leisure booking volumes also closed in onlast year’s levels, resulting in the smallest booking declines yet for 2012 against 2011, save February’s inflated figures due to leap year.

Rates maintained steady growth as hotel average daily rates(ADR) for business travel in July grew +3.0% globally, and increased a more significant +5.8% in North America. Leisure rates remained ahead of prior year as vacationers paid +2.3% more than last year globally, and nearly +3.0% in North America.

"Activity in some industries can slow during the summer as travelers go on holiday. These active vacationers helped rate savvy hoteliers keeprates firm,even boosting bookings for the month of July," said David Millili, chief executive officer of Pegasus Solutions. "Booking volume gaps we’ve been seeing all year against 2011 narrowed to less than-4.0% in July for both global corporate and leisure travel. That’s a marked improvement for both sectors from June, whenleisure bookings slowed to -5.3% less than last year and corporate bookings dropped by ten percent."

Global and North American corporate bookings rebounded from June’s fall, reflecting a slighter -3.4% decrease globally against July 2011, and a -6.4% decrease in North America versus the double-digit level decreases seenin June 2012. Julyglobal leisure bookings came within -3.6% of last year, while the leisure booking gap in North America fell to -4.2%. Both were closer to 2011 leisure booking volumes than any month year-to-date, with the exception of February, which was bolstered by leap year’s extra day.

Corporate bookings will potentially slow in August, then pick-up momentum through the autumn conference season. Leisure data thus far suggests another slow patchin September, with progress against prior year expected again mid-autumn.

Data reported by Pegasus Solutions comes from billions of transactions processed monthly for nearly 100,000 hotels, facilitating more than $16 billion a year in bookings. The Pegasus View, now produced quarterly is the only industry report to reflect data drawn from both GDS and ADS transactions, representing the business and leisure markets respectively.