German hotels show signs of recovery but hotels in Paris are the stars.

Hotels in Hamburg, are leading the recovery in Europe, according to the latest figures from TRI Hospitality Consulting's HotStats survey of chain hotels in European cities.
 
The increase in room revenue per available room at the Hamburg hotels in the survey was 13.5 per cent for the first four months of this year. It puts the German city ahead of Paris where hotels there enjoyed a revpar rise of 11.8 per cent.
 
Germany's capital, Berlin, was also a strong performer, coming in third place with a revpar rise of 10.1 per cent. But it was not all good news in Germany. Munich was the only city in the 10 surveyed where revpar fell, down 2.0 per cent.
 
"There are tentative signs of the long awaited German recovery but it is clear from the figures that this remains patchy," said Jonathan Langston, managing director of TRI Hospitality Consulting.
 
German hotels are also starting from a low base. Out of the 10 cities surveyed, the three German cities prop up the bottom of the table of absolute performance, only outperforming the East European city of Budapest.
 
Munich is the ninth, with a revpar of €61.52, Hamburg the eighth with €70.04, and Berlin in sixth place with €80.22. Bottom placed Budapest had a revpar of €55.52 and Brussels came in between Berlin and Hamburg with €73.94.
 
Absolute revpar levels put Rome in front
 
Rome had the strongest revpar in the sample at €137.62 but it was the second worst performer in terms of increase, with modest growth of 1.3 per cent.
 
The Italian capital contrasts with Paris, which had both the second best growth performance and the third best in absolute terms with revpar of €127.64, just ahead of London at €131.94. London's revpar increase, however, was more than four percentage points lower than the French capital with a rise of 7.7 per cent.
 
The Paris result was the combination of both rate and occupancy growth, up 4.1 per cent and five percentage points respectively. By contrast, rate in Rome went down 3.7 per cent. The strongest rate growth was in Vienna with a 6.7 per cent increase. 

"Paris looks set to be the poster boy for Europe's hoteliers thanks to its good growth on the back of an already strong absolute performance," said Langston.
 
Looking at just the month of April shows Amsterdam with the strongest revpar growth with a rise of 14.5 per cent. This result may reflect in part the strength of Amsterdam's leisure market given that Easter was in April this year.
 
Brussels, the centre of much European political activity which would have stopped during Easter, saw a decline of 22.8 per cent in revpar, making it the worst performer in April.
 
For more information contact Jonathan Langston on +44 (0)20 7486 5191 or email jonathan.langston@trihc.com.