Midlands hoteliers sleep well as room occupancy figures increase

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The latest accommodation figures released by VisitEngland make good reading for the East Midlands, with the region one of the strongest performers in the whole of England for the first two months of 2018. Nottingham has also retained its position in the newly published International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) listings which collates worldwide figures.

The national tourism board’s ‘England Occupancy Survey’ shows that across the East Midlands, room occupancy increased by 2% in January and 1% in February, the only region along with the South West with two consecutive months of growth.

The ‘RevPar’ measure, which is the total room revenue divided by the total number of available rooms in a region, increased by 5% across the East Midlands in January and 2% in February.

Brendan Moffett, Chief Executive of Marketing NG said: “One of our key organisational aims is to work closely with the tourism and hospitality sector to help increase the duration and value of overnight stays in Nottingham. This is an incredibly positive start to the year and with the new Hoodwinked art trail and Robin Hood film release later in the year there’s plenty for us to build on.”

Charlotte Goy, Director of Marketing & PR at Visit Lincoln added: “This is a strong start for 2018 which is encouraging for Lincolnshire and the East Midlands. Lincolnshire will benefit from four Discover England Funded projects over the next two years which will attract more domestic and overseas visitors to the area, resulting in a further boost to the regional and local economy.”

Jo Dilley, Managing Director of Marketing Peak District & Derbyshire, said: “This is great news, given that our ongoing mission is to encourage more staying visitors to spend more time and money in the Peak District and Derbyshire for the benefit of the local and regional economy.

“It also underlines the importance of our efforts to drive up the quality of our overall tourism offer, through our current £1.49 million business support programme, supported by the European Regional Development Fund, and our participation in international marketing campaigns, worth more than £5 million and targeting key markets such as Australia, China, Germany, The Netherlands and the USA.”

Across England as whole room occupancy in January increased by 1% to 65%, whilst bedspace occupancy increased by 1% to 45% when compared to January 2017. In February both room and bedspace occupancy remained unchanged at 74% and 52% respectively.

In the ICCA 2017 rankings Nottingham is 15^th across the UK, the same position as in 2016 and has moved up eight places across Europe to 140^thfor the number of meetings hosted. Marketing NG’s conferencing team will be hosting the annual Nottinghamshire Visitor Economy Summit in June at Nottingham Contemporary, with hundreds of guests set to hear from VisitEngland amongst others.