LONDON | STR Global today released preliminary UK hotel data that shows hotels throughout the kingdom experienced difficult operating environments for the month. The daily performance data is broken down by major city and market segments. The STR Global Weekly Performance Monitor includes data for the whole of January 2009 looking at year-on-year performance in the industry’s key indicators of rate, occupancy and revenue per available room.

Whereas the results are universally in negative territory, performance levels are not as bad as expected given the current economic conditions. The UK overall saw a decline in RevPAR between 10 percent and 12 percent split fairly even between rate and occupancy. Regional UK, i.e. everything apart from London, fell between 10 percent and 12 percent, with the capital itself falling between 11 percent and 12 percent.

Source: STR Global’s daily sample

Commenting on the data, James Chappell, Managing Director of STR Global said “Given the current doom and gloom in the wider economy, we could have expected far worse results than we are actually seeing. Forecasts and budgets are universally down, but what we are seeing is a movement between market segments rather than a wholesale stop in travel which is promising. Airport hotels are naturally the worst affected at what would otherwise have been a strong period, with carriers at Heathrow and Gatwick cutting flights and this is having a knock on effect to the secondary markets such as Reading and the whole M4 corridor.”

Chappell continued, “We are beginning to see the signs of rate coming down and the downward movement in many markets is the strongest indication yet that the so called special corporate rates that the hotels offer are coming under pressure as clients shop around. Hotels are also experiencing very late pick up for business, which makes any kind of forward planning extremely difficult.”

In the rest of the UK, Liverpool and Manchester are down between 17 percent and 19 percent and 13 percent to 15 percent, respectively, whereas Edinburgh and Glasgow fell between 5 percent and 7 percent and 7 percent to 9 percent, respectively.

For more information about this data, as well as market-specific data, please visit .

Notes to Editors | Data is taken from the STR Global daily data sample and may be subject to adjustment.

About STR & STR Global: For more than 20 years, Smith Travel Research has been the recognized leader for lodging industry benchmarking and research. Smith Travel Research and STR Global offer monthly, weekly, and daily STAR benchmarking reports to more than 36,000 hotel clients, representing nearly 5 million rooms worldwide. STR is headquartered in Hendersonville, Tennessee, and STR Global is based in London. For more information, visit .

Konstanze Auernheimer (STR Global)
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STR Global