Travelmole guest comment: Joining the revenue race at the London Marathon
Wednesday, 25 Mar, 2011
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Andy Storey, vice president at Enterprise Solutions, Rubicon (a Travelclick company), weighs up the impact of the big race on London’s hotels:
With the London 2012 Olympics tickets going on sale earlier this month we thought we’d take a look at how one of the major regular sporting events that takes place in the capital – The London Marathon – will affect hoteliers this year.
With just under a month to go before the big day we’ve used our forward-looking data to see what hotel occupancy and pricing in the London area looks like for the race weekend (15-18 April).
For the overall weekend, committed occupancy is up 14% on the race weekend last year, while rates are down 6% year-over-year.
On the night before race day itself the committed occupancy is up 6.5% at 62.2% and rates are down 4.2% compared to last year.
We know that some travellers may want to rest after the big race and therefore stay over on Sunday night instead of travelling that day; committed occupancy for that night is up 19.4% while rates are actually down 5.4%.
The lower rates are a likely symptom of the current economic climate in that travellers aren’t willing or able to pay higher rates.
However, this has caused the spike in bookings this year and lured guests who were previously unable to head to the capital for the marathon.
We anticipate that these occupancy numbers will increase even more as we draw closer to the event, with a surge of bookings expected for the two weeks ahead of race day.
The annual marathon saw 36,984 participants taking on the 26.2 mile race last year and that’s before we even take into account the spectators.
Dinah
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