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Hotels in Brussels Post 5 Consecutive Months of Growth
The hospitality industry of the capital of Belgium seems to be back on track after a year of declines. Hotels in Brussels have posted already five consecutive months of occupancy growth.
The positive trend started in November 2016, when the occupancy of hotels in the capital added 10.2% compared to October. That is exactly one year after the declines that started in November 2015 when the market experienced problems due to the terrorist attacks in Paris. In November 2015, the occupancy fell by 19.5%, followed by a drastic decline of 26.7% next month. January and February 2016 had some positive shifts, such as the growth of average daily rate. However, the attacks in Brussels Airport and the Maalbeck metro station made it impossible for the industry to grow, and so Brussels hotels had to struggle with eight more months of double-digit declines. The occupancy was especially low in April and August 2016, when the drop was 30.8% and 31.1% respectively. The decline of ADR was not that significant and reached 0.8% for the second quarter of 2016 and 5.7% for the third one.
In March 2017, the absolute occupancy estimated 69.0%, which is 19.4% higher than in March 2016. On the other hand, that is still lower than the pre-attacks level of 71.9% in March 2015. That means hotels in Brussels still have to struggle to reach their average long-term metrics. This year, the growth was mostly driven by an increase in Group bookings of 40.4% (group – 10 or more bookings at once). According to the experts, the industry will keep recovering and is expected to reach the level of 2015. After a fall in demand of 16% last year, in 2017, the demand is to gain 15% in case there are no new security incidents in the city.
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