TravelMole Guest Comment: Anyone for tennis?
Andy Storey, Rubicon vice president of enterprise solutions, explains why the Wimbledon Championships are ace for London hoteliers.
“With this year’s Wimbledon Championships marking the 125th anniversary of the tournament, and as a keen tennis player myself, we took a look at what London hotel demand and rates are looking like between 20 June and 3 July this year.
The forward-looking data shows that hoteliers in the capital are already netting the benefits with a 14.4% rise in overall bookings compared to the 2010 tournament.
For anyone not in the know, the Wimbledon Championships brings tennis fans from across the globe to SW19 each year and hoteliers in the capital are benefitting from the historic grand slam tournament with increased demand and an overall 7% increase in rates.
As expected, committed occupancy is highest for the 2 July, the night before the final. As the competition draws closer we anticipate that these numbers will increase further.
The annual tournament is an all-round draw attracting both group and transient business occupancy for which is up 4.5% and 23.7% respectively compared to the same time last year.
We seem to be seeing what could demonstrate a healthy recovery for the hospitality industry as the economic situation slowly improves. The increases in committed occupancy and average daily rates, including an encouraging 58% rise in group rates, reflects this.
Get yourself in line for the strawberries and cream!”
(This data represents a sample of 76 hotels and 16,536 hotel rooms between 20 June and 3 July).
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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