France may not have fared very well in the recent Winter Olympics, but it grabbed the gold in Europe in the race for hotel RevPAR (revenue per available room) in 2001.
According to the results of a survey released earlier this week by Paris-based MKG Consulting, France registered a RevPAR increase of 1.6 percent, while the figure for Europe overall dropped by 2.9 percent over the previous year's numbers. Great Britain's figures dropped significantly (minus 6.5 percent) over the previous year, due largely, says MKG, to a down stock market, the foot-and-mouth disease crisis, and the fact that it felt the impact of the September 11 terrorist attacks more than any other European country.
The survey results showed that southern Europe did generally in maintaining RevPAR, while the Benelux countries and Germany, which was more affected by the slump in the American economy that France, Italy or Spain were, suffered drops of as much as 5 percent. Still, MKG sees a silver lining, stating that much of the RevPAR problem was due not only to the events of September and flat economies, but to the fact that there was a significant addition to supply in many European countries. This fact, says MKG, bodes well for the European hotel industry as global political and economic factors continue to show improvement.
MKG surveyed 3,700 corporately operated hotels in Europe on a month-to-month basis in compiling data for the report. The hotels represented nearly 400,000 guest rooms.