Occupancy of top hotels less than 15 percent, are there any alternatives?

Will the weekend tourists keep coming? Is business traffic on the rise again? The outlook is bleak. Real estate owners keep in mind that they will have to look for other uses for hotel buildings.

The colossal hotel nhow Amsterdam RAI symbolizes the malaise on the Amsterdam hotel market. Where conference and stock exchange visitors would have to walk in and out of the architectural masterpiece, the doors are trimmed with red and white ribbons. Closed until further notice.

“A year ago, everyone was preparing for the IBC fair,” says Jan Steinebach, hotel expert at CBRE consultancy. “30,000 people would come to the RAI, for at least a week. Every hotel room in Amsterdam would be filled.”

Today’s reality is that there are no fairs and conferences. Business passenger traffic is virtually silent. This means that roughly half of the clientele for the hotels has disappeared.

Staycation

In the other half, in professional circles with leisure (leisure activity), things started to pick up a bit over the past month, after the all-time low in spring at the start of the corona crisis.

Not that with the cautious recovery, turnover increased proportionately. Rooms are filled with price promotions; for next to nothing in a luxury hotel, two nights for the price of one, free breakfast. “Amsterdam without tourists is a lot of fun to do”, says a couple from Drenthe who have just checked in for a staycation in the five-star Conservatorium hotel next to the Museumplein.

The marketing director of that hotel, Ruurd Hooijer, paints the gloomy picture. “In addition to the Dutch guests, we are also highly dependent on the American market and the English market. But now, partly due to the quarantine measures in England, that is of course disappearing. And I do not expect that to return before the end of the year. “

He hopes that there will soon be a rapid test at the airports, which will allow air traffic to get going again. Now his hotel, like that of the other five-star hotels, is operating with an occupancy of 10 to 15 percent. “Close to 10 on weekdays, close to 15.”

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