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Hoteliers in Edinburgh and Glasgow shrugged off lower occupancy with higher rates in July, while the reverse happened in Aberdeen as rates fell more than occupancy grew.
That’s according to the latest monthly LJ Forecaster Scottish Intercity Report, from tourism market research firm LJ Research, which found occupancy in Edinburgh fell 1.9% to 89.8% compared with the same month last year.
This was, however, outweighed by a steeper increase in average room rate of 3.8% to £131.04, which resulted in overall positive revenue per available room (RevPAR) growth of 1.7% to £117.67.
A similar picture was also seen in Glasgow as occupancy fell by 2.4% to 87.4% and room rates increased by 10.4% to £80.49. As a result, RevPAR grew by 7.8% to £70.24 in the city.
Meanwhile, the opposite trend took place in Aberdeen as despite occupancy growth of 4.4% – to 68.2% – there was an 18.1% fall in daily rates to £65.07. Overall, RevPAR as a result fell 14.5% to £44.36.
Sean Morgan, managing director at LJ Research said: “July saw solid performance for Glasgow and Edinburgh following the EU referendum. In Aberdeen we continue to see the consequences of the declining oil and gas market.
“As far as Brexit goes, our forward bookings analysis shows an interesting spike in hotel bookings in Edinburgh and Glasgow within the last month compared to a year ago.”
The report, which also collected anecdotal evidence from hoteliers about the impact of Brexit, found roughly half of all hotel general managers anticipate that Brexit will not make a difference to their business, and, among the remainder, there were more who believed Brexit will be a positive rather than a negative factor on performance.
