European corporate hotel bookings surpassed pre-pandemic levels in June as the recovery has accelerated in the past two months.
The latest quarterly figures from HotelHub, which provides booking technology for TMCs and their customers, found that European hotel bookings in June reached 108 per cent of 2019 volumes – this was up from 80 per cent of pre-Covid levels in April.
Across the world, HotelHub’s index for the second quarter of 2022 showed that hotel bookings in June were at 120 per cent of June 2019’s levels.
The growth of international business travel from Europe has also “continued steadily” back to pre-Covid levels. The share of international hotel bookings in Europe made up 41 per cent of all transactions by the end of June – only three percentage points below 2019’s figure of 44 per cent.
Average daily rates in key European cities, such as London and Paris, have also increased month-on-month. Prices in London in June have already exceeded the same month three years ago, while Paris rates are also fast approaching pre-pandemic levels.
London’s average daily rate was $313 (£263) in June, up from $238 (£200) at the start of 2022 and an increase on the average of $287 (£241) recorded in 2019. Meanwhile rates in Paris during June reached $231 (€230), just below 2019’s average of $246 (€245).
Eric Meierhans, HotelHub’s chief commercial officer, said: “We have seen a significant increase in global hotel transactions made by our TMC customers in the past two months, which means volumes have now exceeded pre-pandemic levels.
“This is very positive news for the hotel sector and business travel in general. It’s also very encouraging to see that international travel in Europe is now more or less back to the same levels as 2019.
“However, the US is a slightly different picture – while international travel did increase, this growth slowed down in May and June, potentially due to the war in Ukraine causing continued uncertainty.”
Meierhans added that bookings through online booking tools (OBTs) had “increased significantly” in the second quarter, which had been “contrary to our expectations”.
“We anticipated that corporates would need the support and advice of their TMC to book hotels offline whilst they navigate the return to travel and ongoing flight disruption,” he said.
“Perhaps the current TMC staff shortages and servicing issues are driving corporates towards greater use of their online booking tool.”