The occupancy levels in London reached 84.1 percent last month. This is driven by strong corporate demand, tourism and, of course, major international events such as the Wimbledon tennis tournament. This was the information that was released by TRI. However, TRI did say that levels in the capital have been maintained at the expense of room rates, which have dropped 8.8 percent in June when compared to last year.

David Bailey, which is the deputy managing director of TRI, said that the room rates in June of 2998 were high and a tough comparison against this year’s figures. The occupancy levels in London fell 2.7 percent to 77.3 percent in the six months to June 2009. Room rates fell 7.3 percent during the same time to £108.39.

Thus, TRI says that the London market had a moderate pace in occupancy decline, but widened the performance gap in achieved room rate. David added, in that during the previous recession, it took many months before rates started to steady back out again.

Thus, David said that it’s far too early to say that we are at the beginning of the end of the recession for hotels. He did say that we can all be sure that it is definitely the end of the beginning of the recession if that is any good news for anyone.

Hotels in other areas of the UK have dropped room rates by 7.8 percent compared to London’s 8.8 percent. Thus, the UK as a whole has stopped the decline in average room rates, and in turn this has slowed the downward trend in room rates that has shown up in the past six months.