Hotel business 'likely to improve'

Date: 30th July 2009

People who run hotels are likely to avoid going into administration this summer, new analysis from the British Hospitality Association suggests.

According to the industry group, business is likely to "pick up" for the small business owners over the peak holiday season.

This point of view has been bolstered by the release of latest hotel insolvencies data from PricewaterhouseCoopers earlier this week.

The report showed that the number of hotels going under had declined slightly over the second quarter of the year, when compared to the first quarter.

Hotel managers were also revealed to be cutting customer costs in order to drum up trade in the recession, with room prices dropping by 14 per cent year-on-year in Brighton and by 20 per cent in Birmingham.

Miles Quest, spokesman for the British Hospitality Association, said: "There are fewer insolvencies at the moment probably because the summer season is upon us and most hotels are reasonably busy at the moment."

He added: "June, July and August are always busy months. If you are not going to succeed now, you never will. Most hotels [which] had a bad time in the first half of the year will have certainly picked up in these few months."