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While dramatic headlines, of terror, war and contagion, sell newspapers, they do not help when it comes to filling bedrooms. Thus hotels across the UK have seen performance fall heavily in the wake of events on the domestic and international stage – from foot and mouth to 9/11 to war in Iraq.
There has been much speculation about how soon and how quickly the sector might recover from this latest downturn. Despite signs of optimism at the end of 2002, it turned out to be a false dawn as events on the international stage once again conspired to stamp out signs of improvement. As the clouds of war gathered over Iraq so tourism suffered in the climate of uncertainty and when the storm broke in March 2003 the hotel sector took another battering. London, as an international gateway city with a high proportion of overseas visitors, continued to bear the brunt of this downturn. March saw rooms yield in the capital fall by 13.1% to
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
