Travel managers can continue to expect competitive spot hotel rates in Germany, a new survey by Deloitte suggests. With more than 300 new properties under development, rates across the country look likely to remain under pressure.
Berlin is a particularly acute case in point. The market there continues to suffer from over supply, says the firm.
This year alone has seen the addition of over 1000 rooms. Among the new properties to have opened are the 251-room Express by Holiday Inn Berlin Anhalter Bahnhof, the 274-room Dorint Novotel Berlin am Tiergarten, a 267-room Courtyard in the city centre and a 505-room Maritim.
As a result, average room occupancy dropped by 3.2% in the first half of this year, compared with 2004, achieved rates were down 3.4% and revenue earned per available (revpar) room fell by 6.4%.
Overall, says Deloitte, German hotels saw revpar increase by 4.7% last year, the second highest rate of growth reported by any country in Europe.
But in the period until June this year the rise has been just 1.2%, with occupancy up 2.2 and achieved rates down 1%.
Revpar increased in 60 per cent of the 21 cities tracked.
When it comes to individual cities, however, German figures are affected more than most by events. For example, average occupancy in Dresden shot up by 11.1%, rates by 4.6% and revpar by 16.2%.
But the performance was boosted hugely by the 60th anniversary commemorations of the city's destruction by bombs during the Second World War.
After Dresden, the best performance was from Hannover (up 13.1%) but, again, the figure was enhanced by a timber trade fair and the German Protestant Church Convention.
Three big trade fairs also pushed up Cologne's revpar by 10.2%, while events which boosted Dusseldorf and Essen in 2004 made their figures look worse by comparison.
The survey says German hotels can take heart, however, from the expansion of air services to and within the country, with low cost carriers such as easyJet expanding their networks and international airlines including Continental and Emirates launching new routes.
* London hotels reported a 4.9% drop in occupancy in July following the terrorist attacks in the city, hotel consultants PKF said. But rooms rose during the month by 1.2% to £105.
Robert Barnard, a PKF partner, said: “Any fall in occupancy is cause for concern, but the capital's hoteliers lost less than 5% in July. Considering the global impact of the terrorist attacks…hoteliers have done well to keep the losses down this much. We are confident they can bounce back during August and September.”