Hotel bookings continue to hold up well during July

Hotel bookings remained strong in July, compared with the same period last year, though the pace has eased after a strong May and June.

According to data from Pegasus Solutions, July bookings rose 4.3%. This was below Europe and worldwide, which grew 5.8% and 5% respectively. However, the average daily rate continued to grow at a faster pace than the rest of the world, having risen 7.5% in July.

Since May, Europe's average length of stay (LOS) has shortened slightly from last year, with the UK contracting to a lesser extent. The average number of nights per stay in the UK during July 2011 was 1.96 compared with 1.98 in July 2010. The trend is a sign that travellers are cutting back on the length of their trips to rein in their total trip expense.

It is the same story in Europe, where the average length of stay decreased from 2.08 nights in July 2010 to 2.04 nights in July 2011.

Most of the top five UK cities showed respectable booking growth over previous years. Aberdeen and Manchester continued their double-digit reservation growth, while Edinburgh was the only one to shrink reservations. However, this was only a blip for the city, which has 17.4% growth for the year to date.

All of the cities experienced positive rate growth, with Manchester's up a stunning 32.3% compared with last July.

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