87% of London hoteliers and close to 81% of provincial hoteliers believe that customers will change the way they book their hotel in 2012.

According to the latest HotStats Hotel Confidence Monitor of 521 general managers across the UK, the biggest move will be towards web-based technologies with 25.5% of Provincial and 29% of London hoteliers expecting more bookings to be made directly with the hotel's website.

Additionally, hotel bookers are also expected to become increasingly reliant on high-commission online travel agents such as Expedia, ebookers and travelsupermarket, as well as third party bookers such as lastminute.com, laterooms and bookings.com with 41.1% of hoteliers in the Provinces and 44.9% of London managers anticipating more reservations through these channels.

"Whilst the increase in the number of bookings through web-based channels will impact costs in the rooms department, due to sources charging commission levels of up to 30% per booking, the ease of use for customers, presence and geographical spread which is achieved as well as access to previously unpenetratable markets means that the strength of these new channels cannot be ignored," said Mark Dickens, Managing Director of HotStats.

The changing economic landscape also means that 47.6% of UK hoteliers are less optimistic compared to Q3 2011. This represents the most pessimistic response of the last nine surveys conducted by HotStats, with 38% of respondents either pessimistic or very pessimistic about their hotel performance over the next three months.

Despite London currently achieving near to capacity room occupancy levels, 41.5% of London general managers are expecting an increase in Q4 2011 compared to Q3 2011. This increase in demand will further boost average room rate performance and 77.4% of GMs are expecting an increase in Q4 2011, which is anticipated to result in further RevPAR growth. 

In contrast, just over half of Provincial hoteliers (51.7%) see no change or only inflationary growth in RevPAR performance, a similar proportion compared with Q3 2011 expectations.

Unsurprisingly this quarter's gross operating profit (IBFC) expectations are higher in London (47.2%) than in the Provinces (26.5%), but there has been an overall reduction in the proportion of positive responses compared to Q3 2011.
Regarding this quarter's sales and marketing expenditure expectations, the majority of London and Provincial general managers intend to maintain or increase their Q4 2011 budget as compared to Q4 2010. 

In addition, 92.5% of London hoteliers expect to maintain or decrease the staffing levels during the next three months, compared to 92.7% in the Provinces. 27.8% of Provincial hoteliers also reported that they had decreased staffing levels in Q3 2011 against the same period in 2010. 

According to additional research conducted this month in the HotStats Hotel Confidence Monitor, the largest source of demand for bedrooms in the Provincial UK is the domestic leisure or corporate market; this is compared to hotels in London where more than half of the respondents stated that the corporate segment is the largest source of demand, and for 42.8% of hoteliers the international leisure and the international corporate is the biggest source.

According to hotel general managers in the Provincial UK, the domestic economy is going to have the greatest impact on demand, whilst in London the greatest threat is envisaged to be the global economy, reflecting London's status as a global hub for business and leisure tourism. Despite recent negative industry press, 22.4% of London hoteliers still believe that the Olympics Games will have the greatest impact on hotel performance in 2012.

In line with the major threats to performance levels, the outlook for the UK hotel market in 2012 remains mixed, with approximately 60% of all Provincial hoteliers anticipating no change or a reduction in RevPAR performance. In contrast, 91.8% of London hoteliers are forecasting strong RevPAR growth.

On average the majority of general managers who completed the HotStats survey think that the length of stay will remain the same in 2012; but booking lead times will continue to decline according to 55.3% of the Provincial hoteliers polled.

The HotStats Hotel Confidence Monitor was conducted by email, via an online survey, between 1st November and 11th November 2011. A total of 521 UK chain hotel general managers responded to the survey.  No single geographical region or hotel brand was disproportionately represented.  Please refer to the following pages for a full summary of the results and contact details.