German Hoteliers Score Europe's Lowest RevPAR Declines

Hotels in five German cities outperformed the rest of Europe in the May 2009 European Hotel Review, a joint project of Smith Travel Research Global and Fairmas that was released on Wednesday.

All 40 markets in the survey—which pooled data from 2,245 hotels with more than 400,500 rooms—showed a year-over-year decrease in revenue per available room, but the five lowest decreases were all in Germany. Cologne was the top-performing city with a 6.6 percent decrease, followed by Hamburg at 7.5 percent, Frankfurt at 9.9 percent, Munich at 12.3 percent and Berlin at 14 percent.

"In what is a series of grim, negative statistics, the performance by Germany's cities indicates not only a commendable level of skill by revenue managers but is also reflective of Germany's economic performance and a reasonable level of consumer confidence," the report said.

Düsseldorf, the sixth German market surveyed, was nearly the worst-performing city, however, hurt by the disappearance of a few non-annual trade shows that occurred in 2008. Its RevPAR dropped by 34.5 percent. Only Moscow performed worse, with RevPAR plummeting by 41.7 percent, according to the survey.

Other relatively strong-performing markets include: Salzburg, Austria; Zurich, Switzerland; Glasgow, Scotland; Helsinki, Finland; and Rome, Italy, according to the report. All had RevPAR drops ranging from 14.5 percent to 16.3 percent. RevPAR in Paris dropped by 17.2 percent, and London saw RevPAR fall by 20.3 percent.