February 2023: European hotel industry takes different paths

Overall, the European hotel industry posted a higher RevPAR in February than before the COVID-crisis, with growth of +9.5%, a dynamic that is up compared to the previous month (only +3.8% in january 2023 vs. January 2019). Although the number of visitors has not yet reached the levels of 2019 (-4.2 points in February) at the end of the winter, ADR are up by +17.1%.

In terms of ranges, none of them managed this month to reach an occupancy level equivalent to February 2019, but the gap remains narrow in the budget-economy segments, which show a deficit of less than 3 points. The upscale is still lagging behind by almost 7 points. On the other hand, thanks to a considerable increase in ADRs, all ranges are seeing an upturn in RevPAR ranging from 8.6% (midscape) to 11.3% (budget).

At the country level, Hungary and Poland have stood out for several months due to inflation rates that skew ADRs, with both countries showing RevPAR increases of over 20% in Poland and over 50% in Hungary. 

Apart from this unusual phenomenon, there is a clear division between Southern and Western Europe and North Eastern Europe.

!function(e,i,n,s){var t="InfogramEmbeds",d=e.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];if(window[t]&&window[t].initialized)window[t].process&&window[t].process();else if(!e.getElementById(n)){var o=e.createElement("script");o.async=1,o.id=n,o.src="https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js",d.parentNode.insertBefore(o,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async");

Indeed, the trend is rather positive in France and the neighbouring countries. Western and Southern Europe are leading the way: in February, Portugal posted an 18% growth in RevPAR followed by Italy (+17.8%), France (16.4%), Spain (13.6%) and Greece (6.7%). The results in terms of occupancy rates are rather good in these countries with more than -0.9 points behind for Spain or -1.8 points for France. If Portugal leads in terms of RevPAR growth vs. pre-crisis, this is due to the increase in ADRs which amounts to almost 30% (28.7%).

But the only country to recover its February occupancy level...