28/3/2009
A study released this week has shown that Portugal currently has the cheapest hotel rooms on offer in any major European destination. The survey showed that with the onset of the global economic crisis, Portuguese hoteliers acted swiftly, and during the final quarter of 2008, hotel rooms in the country cost an average of 77 euros a night, down 12 percent from prices being paid for the same period a year earlier.
The data released this week by Hotels.com’s Hotel Price Index (HPI) is a regular survey of hotel prices in major destinations across the world.
According to the results obtained in the Hotel Price Index, it finds that “Portugal has become the country with cheapest hotels in the context of the European countries surveyed, accompanying the trend of falling prices in the rest of Europe and the world”.
The HPI tracks the real prices paid per room from a wide basket of hotels, weighted to represent hotels in every star category in major destinations.
Approximately 68,000 hotels in over 6,500 locations make up the sample of hotels from which prices are taken. The prices shown are those actually paid by customers (rather than advertised rates), and therefore give an accurate reflection of hotel prices for the period.
On a global level, the average cost of a night’s accommodation at a hotel also fell by 12 percent during the last three months of 2008, and the rates being charged in December, a peak holiday period, were only one percent above values charged in January 2004, a month when hotels are generally at their emptiest.
All Portuguese cities surveyed recorded drops, with Lisbon and Oporto reporting the biggest cuts.
However, Lisbon hotels remain the costliest in the country, with one night costing an average of 90 euros.
Albufeira is the cheapest for hotel accommodation, with an average of just under 50 euros a night for a room, though the drop in price is only three percent down when compared with prices 12 months earlier.
Coming in behind Portugal in the list of cheapest hotels is the Czech Republic (78 euros), Hungary (81 euros), Poland (85 euros) and the Republic of Ireland (89 euros)
While still expensive by comparison, hotel prices in Britain were those that recorded the biggest reduction, with prices falling 24 percent in the space of a year to an average of 116 euros a night, though the weaker pound shares a large part of the blame.
Chairman of Hotels.com, David Roche explained that “Room rates dropped significantly in the final three months of last year as hoteliers around the world cut prices to try to fill their rooms”, adding that “While last autumn North America was the only continent to see the average room price fall, the latest hotel price index shows the economic downturn is now affecting hotel prices on all continents.”
Source :
the Portuguese news
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