UK budget hotel prices are out of control
£250 for a Travelodge?
For the last two-and-a-half years, I have been staying for work in hotels around the world for much of the time. They have varied in quality from some of the best on the planet, with eye-watering, sky high prices (not me paying, thankfully), to some of the cheapest, a number of which have been truly atrocious.
During that time, since the pandemic, there has been a widespread tendency for hotel prices in the UK to rocket and for availability to plunge. Clearly it is a simple case of supply and demand, and part of that has been the pent-up demand for travel created while we were cooped up at home for months on end during lockdowns. There’s even a term for that, ‘revenge travel’, ie getting payback and taking that trip that was lost due to the global pandemic.
Hoteliers and hotel chains cite inflation and surging energy, staff and stock costs, and no doubt they are hoping to recoup their losses during the pandemic when at times their hotels were virtually empty.
In addition, with many private rental sector landlords selling up their buy-to-let properties due to increasing costs and adverse changes in the tax landscape, there’s far less capacity in the private rental homes market, and people who would previously be housed that way are being put up in hotels.
As well as the 50,000 or so asylum seekers currently being housed in hotels while their claims are being processed, councils are increasingly housing the homeless in hotels due to the severe lack of council homes, and universities and colleges have more and more been putting students in temporary hotel accommodation because so many of them have had such difficulties in the last year or two to secure housing before their courses start.
Before the pandemic you could usually nab a Travelodge or Premier Inn for the night for between £50 and £100, and if you booked early enough - or late enough - £30 per night wasn’t uncommon. During the pandemic so few people were travelling, Premier Inns and Travelodges were often available for £20 to £30 per night, even most prized city centre ones.
Fast-forward to early 2024 and it is now common for chain hotel rooms to reach £250 or so. For something like a Travelodge! A hotel chain long seen as offering a lowly, budget, no-frills, option. Yet now to stay there for two or three nights is equivalent to an average monthly mortgage payment.
There are many Travelodges that are clean, well maintained and modern - but many that are not. I recently had the misfortune to visit one of the latter, their London Wembley hotel. Situated on a bleak dual carriageway, the interior has areas that are run-down and dirty, it is a depressing place. Yet the day I visited in late November rooms were selling at £220.
The lack of supply was never so apparent to me as when a planned stay at one London hotel fell through in October and I had to book an alternative hotel on the night. A year ago this would have been no problem, there’d be decent availability at acceptable prices. At midnight just one Travelodge hotel was showing in London having rooms, and Premier Inn just four, with other chains showing a similar lack of choice and the subsequent shocking price hikes.
There’s no indication hotel prices will reduce to sane levels again anytime soon. According to forecasts from the consulting team at American Express Global Business Travel in October, hotel rates are likely to continue to rise in most global locations during 2024.
This is despite an expected reduction of leisure travel demand, because it should be replaced by increased business travel demand. Rates could rise by as much as 17.5% in some cities, and in London they are anticipating an increase of 9.1%.
No doubt it won’t be long before some of our many cash-strapped councils will start marketing their park benches as al fresco inner city accommodation options, to help with this supply and demand crisis, giving you an opportunity to commune with nature for just £70.99 per night. At times it seems that’s the way things are going.
