Why are hotels suddenly so expensive?

[queenrollo]

I have an event in London in June and due to crappy rural trains I will have to stay over. The last time I did this I got a very basic room for £79. That same room is now £188! (it was a windowless box with just a bed, toilet and no tea making facilities)
I'm probably going to have to cancel the event, because I simply can't justify this.
Friends have suggested airbnb, but I have done this before and as a single female found getting myself around London after 11pm really stressful. Hotels tend not to be down residential streets so feel safer to get to.

I'm not even after anything flash, but i'm looking at Premier Inn, Travelodge, Point A type places and it's all £200 a night!

I'm just having a moan really, but just wondering if other people are finding this a problem either in London or elsewhere in the country?

Anecdotally it feels like a lot of people have gone off air b and b, in addition to those who never liked it in the first place.

Train strike also means the 3rd might not be doable, as driving in just isn't an option. We'll wait and see what happens.

As for the June date I'm now chatting with others who are going to see if we can come up with a split cost option.

Someone responded to my point earlier about single occupancy and I do understand that for a double room it's still the same costs for a hotel, my point was more that single rooms seem to be very thin on the ground. There must be some demand for them.

28th June- have the Hyde Park and other outdoor concerts such as Kenwood started by then?

Could you link to the hotel, please? Was it okay? Did you have shared facilities or your own bathroom?

Doing an overnight bus journey and then walking round London all day is something I would happily have done a few years ago. Now I have a problem with my leg that makes sitting still for hours a problem and I also have to have a wee in the middle of the night and don't like fussing with a dressing gown and remembering to take my room key with me when I go to the loo. So easy to get locked out a 4am.

It's not available for your date of 28th, but in future you might like to look at The Royal Foundation of St Katharine's, 2 minutes from Limehouse station and a short walk from the Thames with amazing views. These do basic but clean single rooms and a great continental breakfast. No TV though!

rfstkath.dbm.guestline.net/availability?hotel=STKATH&arrival=2023-06-25&departure=2023-06-26&adults=1&children=0

The Thameswalk has amazing views, not St Katharine's! Also a nice lounge

Exactly this!

We stay in hotels 2/3 times a month and use bookings.com or Hotels.com and a hotel we used to stay at regularly for 2 nights is now £425….it used to be £180 on a pricey weekend! It’s crazy how much the prices have gone up! I have learnt though, on Booking.com that if I book the cheapest room I can usually upgrade the day before we stay and only pay an extra £4!

Premier Inn New Southgate £69 for 28th June. Good reviews and 5 minute walk from Arnos Grove tube. There are other Premier Inns at around £100 a night if you search the website and look for places further out.
If you use TFL journey planner you can work out your route. I'm old, not a Londoner but have travelled around London at night by myself and felt safe. There are always plenty of people about.

Search on Expedia. There's lots on June 2-3 for £60ish

Let's think about that. You don't say how much they used to pay for electricity, but let's assume it's doubled. So they need to find an extra £45k a year to cover those costs. So that's an extra £562 per room per year. If each room is let 250 times a year — which isn't great occupancy — then the price of the room needs to go up £2.25 a night from its previous rate. Perhaps your parents' hotel has terrible occupancy rates and rooms are, on average only let 100 times a year: that's £5.62 per room per night. Even if the gas heating bill has risen to the same extent, and the staffing bill, you're probably only talking about another £20 per room per night.

How much have they raised their room rates by? I bet it's a lot more than that. The hotels that in 2019 were around the £100pn mark are now at least £150 and often more like £170 and £200.

I said in an earlier post that for the first time in ages that I can remember, I've noticed that a number of hotels are offering reduced rates if you book three or four days before arrival. I'm assuming that's telling us that a lot of people have decide that £200+ a night in London is too much. This article in The Caterer appears to support my observations:
https://thecaterer.com/news/mixed-fortunes-predicted-uk-hotel-industry-2023-rsm

By the way, someone upthread suggested OP used an AirbNB in Islington that they linked to. Did you not read the reviews? The owner has five cats, the place stinks of cat urine and there's no hot shower. Not just one review, several of them saying the same thing — and you know what people are like on AirBnB, they never give a poor review unless a place is bogging.

I read those reviews ... I wouldn't stay there !!!!

Thank you, Abracadabra, that looks like just what I'm looking for — calm, quiet and with some greenery outside the windows. I'm going to book a couple of days there in June and July and then later in the year if it's as good as it looks. Sad that it's too far from the kind of things I do in London to walk and involves the DLR but you can't have everything you want in life! Really grateful.

I am seeing Travelodges in Wimbledon, Wembley and Stratford for the 28th for between £112 to £122. Not massively cheap but better than the £188 you found. Obviously not in or very near to Islington but all 3 are pretty close to public transport and the journeys aren't horrendous. I've stayed in the Wimbledon one last year for a concert at the O2, it was brand new then. Stayed in the Wembley one a few months ago for a west end show. I also see some Premier inns and Premier Inn hubs for less than £150.

I've noticed that it depends where you're wanting to stay. I'm in Scotland and have recently stayed in Glasgow City centre at a reasonable price, also Aberdeen and Dundee.
Edinburgh extortionate now though, prices seem to have almost doubled, and we regularly stayed overnight in Edinburgh before.

It’s due to a number of reasons.

Inflation has pushed up business costs (electricity, heating, food, staff) and so room rates must increase in order to keep making the same profit as before.

Brexit has reduced the number of cheap EU workers available to staff the hotels, so wages need to be more competitive, which also increases business costs.

Over 51,000 asylum seekers are now housed in hotel rooms across the uk. As with anything, supply and demand applies. If there are the same number of hotel rooms and a chunk of them are now out of action, prices will increase for the remaining rooms.

The travel industry is still bouncing back post Covid, so the increased demand from that might also be contributing.

And of course there’s always the possibility of profiteering. Perhaps some businesses see prices jumping up across the board due to inflation and see an opportunity to hike their own prices (above what is needed to offset inflation) and make more money.

You're welcome. A friend stayed there and raved about the breakfast and said she'll be staying there whenever she's in London so it must have impressed.

I guess you have to choose between a perfect location but very high costs, or travelling in and an okay price

Totally agree with this! Last year in October I looked to book a 2 night break with DP in the Lake District, staying in a pub right in the centre of one of the towns. Booking it with days spare it was around £180 for the 2 nights. Now looking just this morning, for at the same dates, more or less the same weekend (around his birthday) it’s more than double coming in at £400. So now we simply won’t be going!!!!

There's a YHA in Cheshunt that is nice and close to the station. Could be an option?

@Saxendastarter bloody hell, I didn't read the reviews, just looked at location and description! You're right, sounds horrendous!

Well I've booked into the YHA on the rec of this thread, it's £27 for a dorm.
I'm aware most MNetters can't do this as they are travelling with kids.
As I said though, the Hotel I used on Thursday was £65.

What's wrong with the DLR? (Answer: absolutely nothing).

Covid travel bans??? I had to look at the date of the thread then!

Far more likely to be CoL, energy etc

My cousin has also stayed there and was very happy with it. It's a nice location. The nearby Yurt Cafe is very good, and it's an easy walk from Limehouse marina along the Thames to Canary Wharf, or even to Wapping and Tower Bridge. It's more locals than tourists but that's another positive in my view.

@Kittykatchunjy I am mainly talking about China where it’s only recently they have been allowed to travel. New Zealand also reopened borders relatively recently. Many people don’t want to travel if they have to go into state run quarantine facilities on their return home.