BCD Travel, the world’s third-largest travel management organisation, has released its global update for the first quarter through its consulting unit Advito. The revised update includes projections that hotel room rates will fall and that car rental charges will rise, with North American airfares remaining stable.

The hotel rate revision was applied to room rates at leading travel markets including China, Spain, France, India, Germany, Brazil, the UK and the US. Advito said that the new outlook was based on the slow pace of global economic recovery along with emerging markets showing increased capacity. The figures reflected the stabilisation of American Depository Receipts (ADR) in the second half of 2009.

The full year ADR for 2010 is predicted to decrease by two per cent in the US compared to 2009, while the UK forecast is for 2.2 per cent, 4.5 per cent in China and India and 1.6 per cent in France. These figures are markedly different to those forecast by Advito in October, when the ADR numbers were for falls of 0.9 per cent in the US, 1.2 per cent in the UK and around three per cent for China. By December, the ADR for the UK and the US was down by a just 1 per cent.

In the car hire market, Advito originally forecasted that 2010 rental car sales in the US would be comparative with 2009, but has since issued new warnings of rising costs, particularly attributed to the high rate of no-show fees that have been applied during the recession. The economic downturn also resulted in more than 100,000 vehicles being withdrawn from US fleets which are expected to influence rate rises of around eight per cent.

The Toyota safety scandal has also impacted on the industry, with the faulty flagship hybrid Prius recall denting consumer confidence.