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Hotel, accommodation - Source: ONE News -
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Some European airport hotels have raised rates sharply in the
last week - in some cases doubling them - as a volcanic ash cloud
from Iceland left flyers stranded and created a crush of desperate
customers.
But hotel operators say they were merely pricing their rooms to
meet that overwhelming demand, and that they have in fact lost more
business in the long run than they gained in the first days of the
crisis.
Millions of people have had travel plans disrupted since the
eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano turned much of Europe into
a no-fly zone. Those lucky enough to get a hotel room at a major
airport in recent days appear to have paid dearly.
Hotel data provider STR Global said it found revenue per available
room at major European airports grew in the high double digits in
the week ended April 17 over a year earlier.
The figure is a crucial measure of hotel industry performance.
STR Global found it rose 69% at Amsterdam Schiphol, 70% at
London Heathrow, 137% at Brussels and 369% at Frankfurt
Rhein-Main.
While the figures are skewed by other events - like a trade fair in
Frankfurt - they give at least some picture of what kind of rates
airport hotels were able to charge.
On April 16, for example, average room rates rose at least 40% over
the prior day in three of the six cities STR surveyed.
On April 17 daily rates were at least 20% higher than the prior
day in four of the six cities.
Factors at play
Industry officials say the reality is more nuanced that the figures
suggest.
The association of hotels and caterers in Flanders, where Brussels
Airport is located, said a number of factors explained higher
prices now than a year ago, when the height of the economic crisis
meant occupancy rates around the airport were around 50% and prices
less than half the official rates.
Individuals having to book a room at the very shortest notice may
well have faced the official room rates.
"Once the problems have disappeared, this will be an old story as
competition will come back into force and drive down the prices,"
said Secretary-General Luc De Bauw.
In the Netherlands, hotel operators say some travellers may have
experienced their hotels charging them the maximum listed rate for
their rooms, whereas in prior days and weeks they would have been
offered a lower rate due to less demand.
"The last room available is the same as (the last seat) on the
plane and as flowers on Mother's Day," said Kees Teer, general
manager of the Dorint hotel at Schiphol.
"The rate asked Friday before the natural disaster was doubled in
the (following) week, and that's a normal process given that you're
working with a capped maximum rate and you can only ask that rate
if demand is very high."
Teer added his hotel lost more business Monday due to cancellations
than it made with extra customers last weekend.
The world's biggest hotelier InterContinental Hotels Group Plc says
it has seen some rise in bookings at airport hotels, but this has
also been balanced by cancellations.
The group has nine Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza hotels close to UK
airports where it has seen bookings and room rates rise due to the
disruption to air traffic. Prices have risen to near the top of its
pre-set range of room rates, the group said.
And in some places, hoteliers simply denied that there had been any
rise in rates at all.
"Hotels in Frankfurt held rates unchanged and in some cases lowered
them. They generally tried to accommodate customers as much as
possible and did not benefit from customers' misfortune," said
Julius Wagner, managing director of the hotel and restaurant
association for the German state of Hesse.
"The statistics do not reflect what we are hearing from hotels in
the region."
