July 2021: the European hotel industry is back on track

Although the overall occupancy rate of European hotels remains down by -29.6 points compared to the pre-crisis period, it rose significantly between June and July 2021, gaining 11 points to reach 48.8%. The second month of July under the pandemic resulted in better results than last year’s: +16.2 points of occupancy rate compared to July 2020.

In terms of range, the super-economy and economy segments fared best, with occupancy rates declining by 15.7 and -26.2 points compared to the pre-crisis period. However, compared to last year when the mid-range and high-range segments were still heavily affected, this year they managed to regain 16.4 points and +19.5 points on their occupancy rate relative to July 2020, even if they are still far from the pre-COVID period, with, respectively, -30.8 and -38.3 points of occupancy rate compared to 2019.

On the price side, hotels have also resumed an upward dynamic: +13% compared to 2020, but still -11.2% compared to the pre-crisis period. Overall, European countries have thus recorded much more encouraging RevPAR developments in July than in June 2021 and, above all, much more favorable than last year.

The recovery is particularly driven by the Mediterranean countries, which have seen the arrival of the first holidaymakers. This is first and foremost the case for Greece, which has achieved the best results on the continent in July 2021: the country recorded the highest occupancy rate in Europe (59.8%, 24.8 points higher than the previous month) and thus managed to return to a level of RevPAR that was -26.8% lower than in July 2019. Its prices have returned to pre-COVID levels (+0.8% compared to July 2019).

Greece is followed by France, which recorded a slight decline in RevPAR to -30.7% in July, thanks in particular to an occupancy rate that has risen to almost 55%...