Munich has taken a surprise lead with the strongest hotel sales performance in Europe this month but Moscow remains the city to beat, according to the latest HotStats survey by TRI Hospitality Consulting.

TRI’s monthly survey of 10 European cities found the Bavarian city had edged in front thanks to a 77.6% leap in revenue per available room (revpar) at its hotels in April.

 This meant in the first four months revpar was up 27.2% just ahead of the usual star performer Moscow, which had a 26.6% rise in the same period.

Jonathan Langston, TRI’s managing director, said: “Some German cities are hugely affected by the occurrence of trade fairs and this means their performances can fluctuate wildly month-to-month. We expect full-year numbers to be less dramatic.”

In contrast, Moscow has been consistently pulling in strong performances in revpar terms, said TRI. In April, revpar was up 41% thanks to a 28.1% hike in rate and a 6.7 percentage point increase in occupancy.

At the other end of the scale Prague and Hamburg have had the worst start to the year so far and are the only cities in the European survey showing negative revpar growth in the first four months. Prague was the worst with revpar dropping 7.6% while Hamburg was down 4.7%.

TRI Hospitality website >>

Parisian hotels enjoy a jump in profits >>

Chain hotels enjoy a robust first quarter >>

By Chris Druce

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