A bright spell for tourism despite gloomy weather

July 2007 confirms the European hotel industry’s resistance to contrasting elements. The heat wave in Southeast Europe and torrential rains on much of the North did not overly dampen the enthusiasm of clientele. The global occupancy posts the same slight growth by 0.7 point, despite the 1.1 point drop felt by the upmarket category. Simultaneously, average daily rates confirm their uptrend on all segments with growth by 4.8%. Pulled along by economy categories, the room revenue rose by 5.9%. An overall positive result that is nonetheless skewed by the important drop reported in Germany. July 2007 in the country that hosted the FIFA World Cup 2006 suffers in comparison with last year (-7.5%). Without this exceptional but temporary drop, last July’s rate of growth of the RevPAR could have been close to that reported on the last twelve months (+8.9%). Strong growth in average daily rates (+7.2%) is doped by the good health of the upmarket category that posts double-digit growth (+10.2%) in its RevPAR.Afew countries suffered from July’s bad weather. The primary loser: Hungary which suffered from a major heat wave that caused many deaths. Hoteliers had to make efforts in pricing (-10.4%) to sustain a level of activity comparable to least year’s. British hotels succeeded in surpassing historic flooding and continues to post growth in the RevPAR by 3.6%. This result is excellent despite a slight drop in occupancy of up market properties. Austria also shows a slight drop in occupancy rates in the up market category, which was largely compensated by an increase in average rates (+10.4%). The rest of Europe has a good morale at the beginning of summer. Results that flirted with or surpassed double digits were the norm in July thanks to combined growth of the two ratios. An exception to this list is...