MONTH IN REVIEW
MONTH IN REVIEW
www.hotelowner.co.uk
START: THE MONTH’S NEWS BEGAN HERE
PROFIT PER ROOM
Profit per room
for UK hotels
falls in
February
Year-on-year profit per room at UK
hotels fell by 5.1% in February 2018, as
cost increases continue to accelerate.
However, hotels in the UK
successfully recorded a 0.2% year-on-
year increase in TrevPAR, to £122.64,
which was due to increases across all
revenue departments, including rooms
(+0.4%), food and beverage (+0.2%)
and conference and banqueting
(+3.6%).
The growth in room revenue
in February was driven by a 1.3%
increase in achieved average room
rate, to £106.70, and was in spite of
a 0.6-percentage point decline in
room occupancy, to 73.0%, as volume
struggles to grow beyond the current
record levels.
Whilst the growth in top line revenue
was subdued, it was ‘wiped out’ by
escalating costs, which included a
1.0-percentage point increase in payroll
to 32.5% of total revenue.
Additional cost increases were also
recorded in overheads, which grew by
0.9-percentage points year-on-year,
to 26.3% of total revenue, which was
largely due to a 7.1% increase in utility
costs, up to £5.55 on a per available
room basis.
As a result of the movement in
revenue and costs, GOPPAR at hotels
in the UK fell by 4.8% year-on-year
to £36.65 in February. This was
equivalent to a profit conversion of
29.9% of total revenue.
Pablo Alonso, CEO of HotStats,
said: “After several years of consistent
growth, the upward trajectory has
stalled somewhat, which seems to be
as a result of occupancy levels hitting
a ceiling”.
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www.hotelowner.co.uk
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ONLINE
TripAdvisor
launches
Sponsored
Placements
feature
TripAdvisor has launched Sponsored
Placements, an advertising scheme
that enables accommodation
businesses to increase their properties’
visibility and drive booking referrals.
Business owners set up a campaign
where ads are automatically targeted
to people searching for relevant
accommodation options in the area.
Verdon-Roe, vice president B2B
product and marketing, said: “Given
the influential role TripAdvisor plays in
the ‘Inspiration, Shopping and Decision’
phases of a traveller’s planning and
booking experience, we decided to
build a product to help accommodation
business owners reach potential guests
at this critical stage of the path to
purchase journey.”
QUOTE OF
THE MONTH
“You can imagine what a
malicious person could
do with the power to
enter any hotel room,
with a master key created
basically out of thin air.”
That’s what Tomi Tuominen, practice
leader at F-Secure Cyber Security
Services, said after his company
discovered a door lock design flaw
that could allow hackers to open
hotel room doors.
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CONTROVERSY
Edinburgh
Airbnb landlord
banned after
racist remarks
An Airbnb landlord in Edinburgh
has been banned from the site after
posting a listing with the words
“please don’t book if you are asian”.
Airbnb has handed the landlord,
Stephen Sheppard a lifetime ban and
the advert for the Gilmerton Road flat
has been removed. He justified the
racist remark by saying he has had
“bad experiences” with Asian guests
previously.
Sheppard’s listing was discovered by
an Asian IT worker, who was looking for
accommodation in Edinburgh.
The IT worker told the Daily Record:
“This act by the ‘host’ is the worst type
of violation you can perform on this
platform. If you are deciding to make
your property available on a platform
such as this to generate an income
then the rules do not allow you to
discriminate in this fashion, period.
If you have a personal resentment
towards a specific group of people
then do not use this platform.”
He also said that Airbnb should do
more to monitor listings and ensure
racist listings do not appear, adding:
“Airbnb have chosen not to scan
house rules or look for discriminatory
listings when they quite easily can.
“They have given importance
to their revenue stream over
discrimination as possibly the
process to implement is not cost
effective and thus they rely on the
users to see and report.”
An Airbnb spokeswoman said: “We
have zero tolerance for discrimination
and have permanently removed this
host from Airbnb.”
May 2018