Global hotel prices show slight rise but Europe leads the way

In contrast, there was a small rise of 0.6% in Asia, whilst prices in the US and the Rest of the World fell. The Hotels.com HPI is the most comprehensive and accurate source of global hotel pricing information. It is based on prices for 30,000 hotels across 1,500 locations around the world and on the actual prices paid by customers, rather than simply advertised rates. Full details of the Hotel Price Index. Patrik Oqvist, marketing director of Hotels.com, comments: „While prices across Europe are up, many major global cities have actually experienced a price drop since last year, making some destinations great value for travellers.”

The Hotels.com Hotel Price Index also shows that, outside of New York, many of the major US cities have real bargains on offer. Prices across the country fell to an average £71 per night in Q2 2007, down 0.5% on the same period 12 months before. This made the US more than 20% cheaper on average than Europe during the period. Asian hotel prices rose slightly in 2007, up 0.6% to an average of £79. The price of a room for the night in major European countries. Prices in Europe rose by 5.2% year-on-year in Q2 2007 to an all-time high, with prices up in most of the major city destinations. In some cases, price rises were driven upwards by a lack of supply in specific cities, such as London and Barcelona.

The average price paid for a room in 2007 in Europe was £89, which makes prices in Europe far higher than those anywhere else in the world. The UK posted a rise of 17% year-on-year, making it the most expensive country destination across Europe. A hotel in the UK now sets the average traveler back £110 per night, 8% more than Switzerland, the next most expensive nation at £102. As well as the UK, the major Scandinavian countries of Norway and Sweden were amongst those where prices rose most strongly, up 16% and 10% respectively year on year. At the other end of the scale, Poland and Hungary were Europe's cheapest nations overall. (Read more )