Is the UK hotel sector out of trouble?

Tourism in the UK showed a downturn in the first part of the 1990s and the period has been described as encompassing the most traumatic years in recent history for UK hoteliers. However, by 1995 the volume of tourism had recovered the levels of the late 1980s and it continued to grow. The total volume of overnight tourism in the UK increased by an estimated 23 per cent between a low in 1993 and 1997, the latest year for which official statistics are currently available. Findings suggest that the recovery in the hotel sector as a whole kept pace with this. The volume of UK hotel nights in 1997 was an estimated 8 per cent higher than in 1989. Other official figures on the numbers of hotels and on their financial turnover reveal developments in the hotel sector through the 1990s: fewer hotels providing the same level of bedstock; turnover and gross margins increasing. We note improvements to official statistics on the hotel sector, including a new UK Occupancy Survey, and we look at their potential in adding to understanding of the hotel sector. However, timeliness remains a concern. Also, the official statistics do not generally provide the level of detail needed by the industry, for example to show the effect of new markets such as budget hotels.