Peel Hotels posts 4.1% drop in turnover after ‘slowdown in demand’

Hospitality group Peel Hotels has reported a 4.1% drop in turnover after a “continual slowdown in demand” at its UK properties.

In its financial results for the full-year ending 28 january 2018, Peel saw turnover drop to £16m when compared with £16.7m recorded in 2017. It also recorded a pre-tax loss of £734,986 attributed in part to an exceptional £1.2m expense caused by “impairment of the net book values of two leasehold properties held within subsidiaries”.    

EBITDA also dropped by 18.5% to 1.8m compared with £2.2m the previous year. Peel Hotels currently operates nine hotels across the UK, including the Bull Hotel in Peterborough, Caledonian Hotel in Newcastle and the Cosmopolitan Hotel, Leeds.

Robert Peel, chairman of the group, said upward pressure from increases in the living wage, business rates and energy created “challenges to the profitability of the group”. He said: “The impact is felt over the winter months when overall business is seasonally less yet the costs remain the same. Online travel agents (OTAs) give us an increasing share of our business but their costs are significant.

“The Brexit decision and the understandable lack of clarity whilst negotiations are ongoing has impacted on commercial planning and therefore demand. We can point to the very month of the decision that turned several years of annual sales growth to decline.

“It is not unreasonable to suppose that once terms and conditions of Brexit are clear that stability and growth will return.”