Yet more signs of an imminent recovery in the hotels sector has come from the latest Deloitte & Touche HotelBenchmark survey, which shows the first revenue per available room (revpar) rise in Central London for 18 months.
September figures for Central London show a 6.7% rise in revpar compared with September 2002, with occupancy levels up 4.8% to 84.1% and average room rates up 1.8%, tipping the £100 mark.
This good news was compounded by another piece of Deloitte research that forecast a 10% increase in revpar for London in 2004, with growth of 7% predicted for 2005.
"We're forecasting an increase in the occupancy rate to 80% in London in 2004, and that's when you can drive rates - when the demand is there," said Marvin Rust, hospitality managing partner at Deloitte.
Barring "further jolts", he said, the hotel industry was on track to recover within three years. But although improvements were already being seen in the US and the UK, Rust said the recovery would be slower in continental Europe, especially Germany. Deloitte unveiled the figures at the European Investment Conference in London last week, where its optimism was shared by delegates.
In a pre-conference poll of 240 hotel executives by Deloitte and TNS Hospitality and Leisure, more than half (53%) expected London hotel revenues to return to the record highs of 2000 within three years and nearly all (92%) thought transatlantic travel would recover in three years.