COVID-19 webinar summary: 5 key points on Europe hotel performance, 10 September

Knowing you might not have time to watch our full webinars, we are pleased to continue series of COVID-19 webinar summaries. In this latest edition, we talk performance in Europe.

Record number of new hotel rooms

More than 50,000 rooms have opened thus far in 2021, which is already more than all of 2020, and scheduled openings for the remainder of the year are expected to grow the number to more than 100,000 total. That growth reflects delayed 2020 openings and limited cancellations of planned projects to date despite the significant disruption in performance from COVID-19. The pace of openings is not expected to slow significantly in 2022, with a further 100,000 openings anticipated. Europe’s previous peak for new openings came in 2019 with 74,852 rooms.

Occupancy recovery comparison

Looking at data through the first week of September, Europe has reached as high as 70% of its 2019 levels thanks to a stronger summer than last year. Levels tailed off in the most recent days, however.

The Middle East has been between 80%-90% of 2019 levels. After a number of lockdowns due to the Delta variant, China is improving from its lows and recently reached 50% of 2019 levels.

ADR: the star of the show

Europe also exceeded 2019 levels in average daily rate (ADR) toward the end of August.

Summer impact

Leisure markets in Northern Europe have almost reached 2019 occupancy levels thanks to staycations. Specifically, leisure demand across Germany, the U.K. and Poland has been key to this recovery.

Forward-looking data shows events impact

Powered by Forward STAR, the image below shows occupancy on the books for the next 365 days (as of 6 September) in key cities across Europe. Further insights are provided in the full webinar recording. Occupancy-on-the-books intelligence will help us all understand recovery and provide much-needed context. Those insights can be accessed for free when you submit your data. If you are interested, please email sales@str.com.

For further insights into COVID-19’s impact on global hotel performance, visit our content hub.