Earlier this week Hotels.com released its annual Hotel Price Index report, which shows flat rates in Europe, a decline in Asia, and – surprisingly – a slight rise in prices in the U.S. and Canada.
“The average price of a hotel night grew by 2% globally last year,” writes Hotels.com president David Roche in the foreward to the report. “However, since the fall was so prolonged and steep, guests were still roughly paying what they would have done six or seven years ago. Whilst the high volume of promotions we saw in the depth of the crisis has dried up somewhat, there are still deals to be had.”
The Hotel Price Index is compiled from all relevant transactions on Hotels.com based on the actual prices customers paid for rooms in local currency, and is weighted to reflect the size of each market. The report compares prices paid in 2010 with prices paid in 2009.
The report found higher occupancy levels in hotels in business centers like London, Paris, Singapore, and New York, and Las Vegas benefitted from growing convention business.
Occupancy in luxury properties in the U.S. is running between ten and fifteen points higher than in the lower star categories. U.S. cities that saw significant year-over-year increases at five-star properties in 2010 were: Boston (21%), Chicago (20%), Miami (10%), San Francisco (22%), and Washington (16%). New Orleans has been recovering steadily since Hurricane Katrina. Rooms were up 12% in 2010 compared to 2009, indicating a healthy comeback for the hotel industry.
New York still has the highest room prices by star rating in the world, followed by Geneva, Tokyo, then Paris.
The full report is available at
www.hotel-price-index.com .