Hotels in the EU: more than 5 million of rooms

Hotels in the EU today are represented in a wide range and in different price segments. According to the report of French company MKG Hospitality, which is engaged in research of hotel industry in Europe, at the beginning of 2010 the total number of hotels in the EU countries has exceeded 147 000. A total number of rooms in hotels of the EU countries is about 5.2 million. Almost half of the hotel market is occupied by the hotels form Spain, Germany and Italy.

The main trend, which is observed in the report of MKG Hospitality is restructuring of the hotel market of the EU. Earlier, hoteliers tried to develop a middle class section of hotels and at the same time, significant investments were spent on the construction of luxury hotels, today the vector of financing is directed in the opposite direction. Investments in construction of new hotels are primarily spent on the budget segment.

Budget hotels, cheap hotels, economy class hotel - these types of hotels have a second birth in Germany, Britain and France. They attract significant investment in its development and budget hotels are one of the major growth sectors of the hotel industry of the EU. Against this background, major hotel chains try to strengthen their positions in the hotel market. By beginning of 2010 they accounted for about 11.500 hotels with 1 million 300 thousand rooms. In fact, hotel chains account for 26% of the hotel market of the EU.

According to MKG Hospitality hotels of the EU now faced with several challenges, among them the most significant is narrowing of space to promote their own services. This is especially true for hotels in major cities, where competition is extremely high. Here, for small hotels it is becoming increasingly difficult to make concessions in prices while providing the same level of service. Thus, many hotels are forced to move to the franchise working conditions.

It is worth noting that the rate of "consolidation" of the hotel market of the EU, where less than a third of hotels are large hotel chains, differs from the structure of the market in the U.S. There in total about 70% of hotels are large corporations such as Hilton, Marriott or IHG. It seems that similar situation may be expected in the near future in the hotels of the EU.

MKG Hospitality notes that in 2009 for the hotels in Italy, Spain and other EU countries was perhaps the worst in the postwar history. The main indicator of RevPAR (revenue from rental of one hotel room) fell almost everywhere. The most significant reduction is demonstrated by the hotels of the Czech Republic (nearly 26%), escaped with slight shock hotels of Sweden and France (decrease by 8.7% and 8.5% respectively).