The new ECM-MKG European Destinations Observatory report finds out that long-term growth has returned to Europe’s hotel industry with new performances improvement in the sector. The most recent report presents the development of key performance indicators for ECM member cities.
For the first three months of 2015, hotel occupancy rates on the continent rose by 3.3 points, despite Average Daily Rates (ADR) being up to 2.4%. The Revenue per Available Room (RevPAR) naturally evolved on a positive tangent by 5.8% over last year in the same period. Results by city further confirm trends observed for several months, with an increase in nearly all cities, and particularly in Southern Europe and Scandinavia.
Generally speaking, Spanish cities fully benefitted from a favourable calendar, with the organisation of several events in Madrid, as well as Malaga and Zaragoza, reporting respective increases in RevPAR by 8.6%, 15.3% and 4.6%. Hotel activity in Central Europe was marked by strong growth in the RevPAR in Budapest (+14.4%), which continued to benefit from its attractiveness and price. Copenhagen and Stockholm are also among the destinations that recorded growth in their RevPAR by 7% and 3.6% respectively.
Congress cities (base: ICCA ranking measuring the number of rotating international association meetings in 2014), aside from those on the Iberian Peninsula, are off to a difficult start this year like Paris who had a stagnant RevPAR particularly in January due to the terrorist attacks. Vienna and Prague are particular examples with a decrease in their RevPAR by more than 3% and 9%. The Czech capital, despite a drop in average daily rates by more than 14% saw its arrivals increase by just 3.2 points. The results in the cities of Berlin and Brussels are up very slightly.
