EUROPE ’ S LUXURY HOTELS
Bounce
By Michael Grove , COO , HotStats
Back from the Bottom
Luxury hotels across Europe have made an about-face and are back to producing profit at the almost same rate as 2019 , according to data from HotStats . It ’ s an extraordinary turn of events for a sector that saw its gross operating profit per available room ( GOPPAR ) plummet during the dark days of the global pandemic , hitting a historical low of- € 43.21 in May 2020 .
Now , March 2022 GOPPAR of € 66 is only € 4 off its March 2019 number and , at € 24.12 year-to-date , it is 187 % higher than at the same period a year ago .
It ’ s a striking comeback that is still not complete and more remarkable given the depths of where it came from . The luxury segment drifted into negative territory from March 2020 through July 2020 , before briefly returning to positive GOPPAR in August , at € 16.71 . The bounce into positive territory , however , was fleeting . It was disaster forward : GOPPAR was in negative territory from September 2020 through May 2021 . Nine months of operations where luxury hotels — the ones that remained open — hemorrhaged cash .
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