September was encouraging for hotels on the Côte d’Azur and in regional France as they continued to post growth in occupancy and average rates. On the other hand, having stagnated, or even declined, in recent months, Parisian hotels struggled.
Although year-to-date performances at the end of September are slightly higher than last year, the final trimester is important in determining 2015’s end result.
Hotels in Ile-de-France posted a net decline in RevPAR in all categories. Without exception, this was the case for all major poles in the region. This discouraging outcome, which confirms or even aggravates August’s year-todate performances, is the result of the combined drop in occupancy and (to a greater extent) average rates.
Upscale categories were the worst affected in September (decline of -5,4% in RevPAR in Paris).
Although the increase in upper-end average rates since the start of the year has helped buoy up RevPAR (a slight year-todate increase in September), this head start is starting to topple.
Conversely, regional hotel performance remains on the whole encouraging: year-to-date RevPAR performance is significantly up on last year, given substantially higher occupancy. As in previous months, the Côte d’Azur recorded vigorous performances in all categories, with all indicators pointing upwards.
At the end of September, RevPAR had progressed by 3% to over 14% depending on the category, with performances improving as one moves up the scale.
Regional French hotels also benefited from this trend, particularly in the Upscale category whose hotels recorded a +5,1% increase in occupancy in September or a +6% increase since the start of the year. This pattern was repeated throughout most of regional France, with the exception of the Northern coastline and several agglomerations who occasionally posted poorer results.
Year-to-date results remain, however, generally encouraging.
The French hotel industry, particularly in Ile-de-France, would perhaps be performing better if the positive trends in tourist arrivals were reflected to a greater extent in hotel performance.
Although yet to be fully determined, the impact of the collaborative economy (Airbnb, HomeAway, Housetrip, etc.) on the tourist lodging sector is challenging certain business models and unquestionably goes some way to explaining the currently-observed hotel trends
Read the full report at: Hospitality Net
