JD wrote:
Just a brief note about Edinburgh Hotels and how one member of Edinburgh council believes there is a boom in the hospitality industry.
5/5/05
Edinburgh in hotels boom
COLIN DONALD
DONALD Anderson, leader of Edinburgh Council, issued an urgent call for more private investment in the city’s hotel industry last night, after new statistics showed the capital’s hospitality sector is enjoying its biggest boom on record.
The report, published yesterday by market researchers PKF, showed Edinburgh’s average daily hotel yield - the figure gained by multiplying occupancy rate by price point - to be £60.2 in 2004, an increase of 7.4 per cent on the previous year. The equivalent figure in Glasgow was £40.88, and £38.45 in Aberdeen.
Commenting on the figures, Anderson repeated his call to the Executive to provide more resources to speed up the planning restrictions governing hotel developments to counteract what he now says is "Edinburgh’s problem of success".
He added: "Apart from the amount of time it takes to get a hotel planning application through, I see no limits on the expansion of the sector. We need more hotels. There has never been a better time to invest."
Anderson also underlined that this increase in occupancy rates - more marked in the winter season - has been achieved against a 20 per cent rise in the bed stock since 2001.
Council sources have privately expressed disappointment that some "prime sites" for hotel development, such as Morrison Street in the new financial district, and the site of the former Royal Infirmary, have so far remained undeveloped as hotel sites.
Martin Gill, a hotel analyst for PKF, said: "Provided you can get the price right and the location right, the figures show that Edinburgh is still one of the best places in the UK to open a hotel."
Confirmation of the capital’s success in attracting hotel customers comes after a March report by accountants DeLoitte Touche, which saw Edinburgh debut in the global top 20 in terms of hotel revenue and occupancy rates.
Analysts have ascribed much of the success of Edinburgh to the city’s strategic mix of accommodation types, the rise of the so-called "Easyjet Set", budget travellers who have fed a boom in lower-end hotels with rates in the £40-£60 bracket. This sector has outperformed other levels of the market.
But Gill warned that hotel expansion could still be threatened by infrastructural inadequacies.
"You have all of these extra people coming in, but there comes a point when you have to do something about traffic bottle necks. Airport connections are vastly inferior to those offered by the Heathrow Express or Manchester’s trams".
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There you go again. You have the temerity to use a quote from a survey/report WITHOUT checking its accuracy just because it fits in with your beliefs. Why not get hold of the report by PKF and explore its findings - they might well be "flawed."
At the end of the day, your dissection of Jacobs is also flawed because it is based on your interpretation of the report, your selective use of figures (sometimes out of context) and information you have from a biased source who also has his own agenda.
Do not think that I am worried by your statements, threats (implied) or the puerile ramblings of Ali T, Skull et al. I have been in this trade long enough to know that those who make the most noise and complain about things they don't really understand tend to vanish as quick as they came, once they are exposed for what they really are.
Would you not be better concentrating on your own area rather than interfering elsewhere? At least you may have some knowledge of it.