Title: 
London Hotel Market Booms

Word Count:
214

Summary:
Top end London hotels have had a terrific year, according to a special report by hotel benchmarking service The Bench. The London Special Report was commissioned to provide an accurate benchmark of just how well London hotels have done during the first half of the year, before July's figures distort the picture.


Keywords:
London Hotels Accommodation Guest Houses Bed and Breakfast


Article Body:
<p>Whilst top end London hotels have had a fantastic year in London the same is not the case in the midmarket with the worse performance coming from the 3 star sector.</p>
<p>The best performance has come from the capital’s five-star hotels, which hardly missed a beat after the terror attacks in contrast with the harder hit three and four star sectors.</p>  
<p>A surge in visitor numbers to the capital enabled five-star hotels to boost average room rate by 8.45% to £221.75, double the growth of 4.18% recorded in the same period of 2005. Occupancy rose 6.6 percentage points to 77.04%, compared with 3.97 percentage points in 2005. As a result, revenue per available room leapt 15.66% to £170.83 at five-star hotels, compared with 8.32% last year.</p>  
<p>Four-star hotels in the capital also progressed. Room rate grew 4.76% to £98.51, and occupancy increased 5.91 percentage points to 81.61%. This lead to a double digit revpar gain of 10.95% to £80.40.</p>  
<p>But the price-sensitive three-star market found it difficult to raise room rates, which grew by just 44p to £71.87. Occupancy grew 5.3 percentage points to 81.04% and revpar was up 5.96% at £58.25.</p>  
<p>It is expected that there will be unprecedented growth in the second half of this year after the market was artificially depressed by last July’s London bombings adversely effecting the 2005 figures.</p>