Hotels in France start showing signs of improvement after relatively weak beginning of the year. Even though March results cannot be called exceptional, they helped finish the first trimester of the year on a positive note. This is particularly true about Paris, where midscale and budget hotels posted growth, followed by slight improvement posted by upscale accommodations.
After weak January with declines and stable February, hotels finally posted growth of RevPAR in March. This has become possible thanks to higher occupancy rate and stable average room rates. The highest growth of the metric was posted by midscale hotels (+8.3%). At the same time, upscale hotel categories continue struggling through hard times and show only signs of slower declines. Following months will show if luxury hotels can recover after very weak start of 2015.
Hotels in Paris, as usual, post best results if compared to other hotels in the country. They didn’t suffer as much as provincial hotels in January due to several events at Porte de Vincennes and Charlie Hebdo. February was quite an uncertain month, followed by significantly more successful March, which allowed hotels finish the first trimester with growth or at least with equal result.
In provincial France, upscale hotels posted highest growth in March. Luxury hotels experienced timid growth, same as in Paris, but that slight growth was not enough to compensate declines of the first two months of 2015.