Brits face steeper hotel bills overseas
UK TRAVELLERS were left feeling worse off last year as rising demand and an improving economy boosted hotel prices in over half of the world’s destinations.
The hotels price index (HPI), a survey by online accommodation provider Hotels.com, revealed that the average price paid by British travellers for a double room worldwide increased by three per cent last year compared with 2012.
Hotel prices increased in 69 of the 116 cities surveyed in the report, with New Orleans in the US, Cancun in Mexico and Vilnius in Lithuania reporting the biggest jumps in average room rates.
Travellers to Latin America and the Caribbean faced the biggest hike in hotel rates, with prices rising by an average of five per cent last year.
North America was up by three per cent while growth in Europe and the Middle East lagged behind the global average at two per cent.
The weakened Japanese yen and a fall in the number of inbound visitors to China caused hotel prices in Asia to fall by two per cent last year, with Asian cities accounting for seven of the 10 biggest fallers in the league table.
Hanoi suffered the biggest drop of 20 per cent, taking the average price of a hotel room in the Vietnamese capital to £39.
The birth of the royal baby last year and London’s continued popularity following the 2012 Olympic Games pushed up prices by 10 per cent to an average of £121 per night for UK visitors to the capital and by six per cent for tourists from overseas.