Since the beginning of the year, hotel performance in Europe has continued to improve. While prices mostly explain this dynamic, more tourists are also returning to their travel habits.
In Europe as a whole, the hotel industry posted a 15.8% increase in RevPAR compared to the pre-crisis period (vs. April 2019), driven by a +21.4% increase in ADR. In terms of occupancy, the hotel industry is still lagging behind by 3.4 points, but the gap is narrowing month after month: it was 4.2 points in February 2023 vs. February 2019.
While the upscale segment lags slightly behind the other segments in terms of occupancy (-4.8 points vs. 2.1 for the economy segment), the recovery performance is still relatively homogeneous in terms of occupancy, ADR and RevPAR. The economy segment posted a 17.1% recovery, while the midscale segment posted 15.1%.
On a country level, Hungary still shows the strongest recovery (+35% RevPAR growth), which is skewed by the country’s high inflation rate, while its occupancy rate is lagging the most (-8.5 points vs. 2019).
More objectively, the Iberian Peninsula stands out with RevPAR growth above 30%. Spain in particular is back to its April 2019 occupancy rates (+0.3 points) and is posting almost 30% higher ADR. The recovery is also considerable in Portugal, which, although still slightly behind in terms of OR (-1.7 points vs. April 2019), is posting a +30.8% RevPAR thanks to considerable growth in ADR. Italy is following closely behind its Southern European neighbours with dynamic growth: +28.1% allowing it to be positioned ahead of Poland (+21.5%).
France is also doing well: while the recovery in occupancy has not yet reached the level of its Portuguese, Spanish or Italian counterparts, the dynamic in terms of ADR has enabled it to post 18.9% growth in RevPAR. Greece is following suit, with a slight delay in OR but ADR up by more than 30%.
The United Kingdom also stands out this month, notably due to a level of OR that is back to its 2019 level.
Like last month, Northwest Europe is still lagging behind but still managed to post RevPAR growth. In Belgium and the Netherlands the results are rather similar to those of France with 17.2% and 14.1% respectively, but Austria and Germany are stagnating: +5.3% and +3% only of activity growth.
And while Southern Europe is booming, Latvia, Luxembourg and Switzerland are still in the red.
Nevertheless, April was affected by periods of exceptional heat in the south of the continent, which may have been a boon for tourism professionals at the end of the winter, but will it not be a brake on the approach of the summer season?
