Dutch hotel market down

from this morning's STR's Hotel News Network news (9/11):

Growth Dutch Hotel Market Slowing Down

"The growth of the Dutch hotel market is slowing down. The HOSTA 2008 report by consulting firm Horwath HTL shows that occupancies and average room rates have increased only slightly. For the coming years, a further slowing of the growth or even a small decline is expected.

Horwath HTL performed the research among 265 three, four and five star hotels in The Netherlands. Occupancies have increased slightly, from 72.1% in 2006 to 72.5% in 2007. This is an increase of 0.4 percentage points; clearly lower than the achieved growth in 2006 (1.9 percentage points) and 2005 (2.5 percentage points).

The average room rates increased by 1.9%, from € 108 to € 110. This increase is considerably lower than the 10% increase that was achieved the year before. As a result, the RevPAR (Revenue per available room) increased by 2.6%, from € 78 to € 80. This is also far lower than the 15% growth achieved in 2006." ....

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