September was quite a devastating month for hotels in Brussels as they suffered a drop in profit of 56.9% compared to the same month a year ago. The reason for such a drop is high security threat level and possibility of new terror attacks. Belgian hospitality industry has suffered big loss after the terrorist activity in Brussels in March 2016.
The drop of profit is a consequence of declines of all main performance indicators. The decline of RevPAR (revenue per available room) has reached a new record - 26.5% to 75.32 euro for the nine months of 2016. Even though the average room rate remains fairly high (only 1.9% year-to-date drop), the decline of RevPAR happened because of low occupancy level of 57.2%, which is 19.1% below the average occupancy for September.
Not all European destinations posted such poor results. Hotels in Munich had a hot month with profit per room skyrocketing to 128.08 euro, which is 117% higher than the average year-to-date profit of 58.93 euro. Munich hotels managed to keep their occupancy high at 88% while the average room rate estimated 217.94 euro. Consequently, RevPAR reached the fantastic result of 191.83 euro for the month of September, which is 62.1% higher than the year-to-date result of 118.36 euro. Hotels in another European gateway city, Rome, also had a prosperous month. The increase of RevPAR estimated 5.3%, helping profit per room grow by 15.7%. The occupancy added 2.5% to 87.3% in total, and the average room rate increased by 3.3% to 222.77 euro. The success of hotels in Rome in September 2016 was possible mostly thanks to the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy.