Deloitte says London is resilient

London seems to have weathered the travel crisis better than the rest of the UK, suggests a report from Deloitte.

The capital city has remained resilient in the face of the slowdown in tourist numbers, especially when compared with the rest of the country. London’s hotel occupancy showed a decline of only 0.2% between January and September this year, while overall occupancy in the UK dropped by a much grimmer 4%.

During this period, London city enjoyed an occupancy rate of 80.4%, while overall UK occupancy stood at 70.5%.

A 7.2% fall was recorded in average room rates for UK hotels, bringing the revenue per available room (revPAR) down by 10.9%. For its part, London’s revPAR fell by 7.4%.

Deloitte’s hospitality managing partner, Marvin Rust, has commended London’s performance, pointing out that achieving an 80% occupancy rate in these tough economic times has been an impressive feat, one that proves that London is indeed one of the most resilient cities worldwide.

London was, however, overtaken by Glasgow in the revPAR department, with the Scottish city only recording a 1.4% decline. Rust has also said that a surge in domestic travel has helped to counter the 8% drop in overseas visitors to the UK in the period between January and September 2009. He said that this has been the reason UK hotels have been able to avoid the massive discounting for room rates employed by other Europeans countries.