The recent freeze across the U.K. brought with it contrasting fortunes for hotel operators. Daily data from STR Global, the leading provider of market data to the world's hotel industry, showed recent adverse weather and road conditions reduced people's desire to travel locally. Guests were forced either to cancel their plans to travel or to stay in hotels as airports were closed. 

Data for the U.K. for the first working week of 2010 (Sunday, 3 January to Saturday, 9 January) compared to the same period in 2009 (Sunday, 4 January to Saturday, 10 January) showed marginal declines in all three performance measures: occupancy, average daily rate (ADR) and revenue per available room (RevPAR). Hotels in regional U.K. performed worse, even though the results for the U.K. as a while were buoyed by the improved performance at two airport destinations (Heathrow and Gatwick) as well as London and Edinburgh. (Edinburgh was the only regional city to show RevPAR growth.) 

"The adverse weather conditions put a damper on otherwise improving market conditions as hotels reported improving occupancy levels across the U.K. for the month of December", said Elizabeth Randall, managing director of STR Global. "Especially London showed a good performance benefiting from the weakness U.K. exchange rate."