HOTELS in Scotland's three largest cities have seen a year- on-year increase in room rates, largely thanks to major enter-tainment and sporting events.
Establishments across Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen have all experienced an upsurge, with tourism officials claiming one-off events such as the Commonwealth Games have had "an incredibly positive impact".
Glasgow recorded the highest room rate increase, soaring by more than one-fifth (21.2 per cent) to £78.99 in August, compared to the same month the previous year.
While Aberdeen had an increase of 6.5 per cent to an average level of £94.40 per night, buoyed by strong ongoing corporate demands, Edinburgh rates rose by 4.9 per cent to £151.33.
Tourism market researchers, LJ Research, said a record-breaking festival season in Edinburgh was a major contributor to its strong hotel performance, with more than two million tickets being sold for the Edinburgh Fringe and the Edinburgh International Festival achieving sales of more than £3 million.
The capital also sold slightly more rooms than the same month in 2013 as occupancy increased by 0.8 per cent.
John Donnelly, chief executive of Marketing Edinburgh, said: "It is encouraging to see the increase in visitors to the city throughout August. As well as hosting the world's largest arts festivals, Scotland has seen a number of major one-off events this summer, including the Commonwealth Games, the Ryder Cup and the Scottish independence referen-dum, in addition to the Fringe Festival and Military Tattoo, all of which have had an incredibly positive impact on Edinburgh's hotel occupancy figures.
"Edinburgh has been seen on TV screens across the world more than ever this year and this will help further to attract visitors to the city.
"The quality and variety of accommodation the city has to offer our leisure and business visitors also continues to move from strength to strength, with a number of more recent openings including Motel One, Ibis Hotels and The Old Town Chambers."
In Glasgow, occupancy fell slightly, but the benefits of the Commonwealth Games and other leisure events during the month were linked with an overall increase in revenue per available room (RevPAR), a measure evaluating the room revenue return on all hotel rooms, not just those that were sold.
It grew by almost 20 per cent on last year - increasing to £72.27 per night. Aberdeen also had a decline in room occupancy with a drop of 1.3 per cent.
However, the growth in room rates was more than enough to see overall growth in the city with RevPAR rising 5.1 per cent to £75.39 during the month.
Despite growing revenues across the cities, hoteliers have been warned to carefully monitor their rates as guests showed lower satisfaction levels than the previous year. In terms of value for money, customers over the 2014 summer period (July to August) gave rooms an average of 7.68 out of 10 compared to 8.61 in 2013.
Sean Morgan, managing director at LJ Research, said: "Room rate increases in Scotland's three largest cities in August is another positive indication of growth in the hotel sector. However, these increases must not come at the expense of customer experience. A marked decrease in the perception of value for money of accommodation compared to last year might not immediately translate into loss of bookings, but it is important that customer expectations are exceeded or at least matched in this increasingly price competitive sector."
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