18 December 2008

Bleak forecasts from leading hotelier

The hotel industry will not recover until the Olympics in 2012, according to Supranational Hotels managing director Niels Pedersen.

The outspoken hotelier believes many hoteliers in Europe and Scandinavia are still in denial about just how bad their business is about to become.

In order to give hoteliers a ‘wake-up call’, he has put forward a list of ‘worst case scenario’ predictions.

His forecasts for the next five years include:

_ a net reduction in the number of hotel bedrooms, worldwide; and zero growth in the UK

_ hotel tariffs, typically, will not increase between 2008 levels and 2013

_ hotel profitability will decline seriously to be more in line with supermarket margins

_ the average length of stay of business travellers will drop from 1.6 to 1.3 nights, and that of holiday short breaks from 2.3 to 1.8 nights

_ corporate travellers will ignore hotel restaurants in favour of cheaper coffee shops and brasseries, and alcohol consumption will drop dramatically as they opt to work harder and for longer hours

_ ‘green issues’ will no longer even be discussed, but the environment will benefit anyway from a drop in demand for travel and energy

_ the ‘newcomer’ continent both for inbound and outbound travel will be Latin America, benefiting from its general safety record, novelty, value, and service standards

_ a widespread disdain for conspicuous consumption will hit the sales of quality wines, fine dining, spas and luxury health clubs. All hotels will need to ensure that any inappropriate attitudes of superiority on the part of their staff are replaced by humility and deference

_ general managers will typically be younger - aged 30 or less, because many of those aged 30-50 became too spoiled and complacent in the recent good years, and have not learned to work hard enough

By Bev Fearis