Are there any negative effects of the Credit crunch on the London Hotel Industry?

London is a vibrant City and London is a business city. People visit London for a whole lot of reasons. Some come to the great capital for business purposes; some come to the city to visit the famous Landmarks and the many places of interest the City has to offer. The most visited Landmarks include; The Trafalgar Square, St Paul’s Cathedral, London Eye, House of Parliament, The Westminster Abbey and what have you.There are others who also who cannot resist shopping in the great Capital. The City has a whole lot of top shops concentrated on the three famous shopping Streets in Europe namely Oxford Street, Regent Street and Bond Street.

Every industry is now worried of the negative effects of the credit crunch which has become a worldwide concern. Businesses are folding up and some of them are laying of some of their staff. Retrenchment is seen her and there. The experts say that it will take quite sometime before we see the great Economies of the world booming once more. There is one industry however which does not seem so concern about what is happening in the world. This is the hotel industry. What are the effects so far on Hotel industry? For the purpose of this article, I have limited myself to the London hotels and London bed and breakfast industry.

My little research I have made gives me the implication that the negative effect of the so called Credit crunch has not yet gripped the London hotels industry. I have been in the hotel agency business for quite sometime now and have been making reservations across London from budget to 5 star luxury properties properties. I would like to mention that, London hotels and bed and breakfast have been very busy since I started my research back in August 2009 to the time that I am writing this article.

We have an online London hotel booking system which allows the London hotels and bed and breakfasts properties which have joined our portal to log onto the system to close out dates which they are full up or approaching full capacity. One will be surprised hear that, with the current economic situation, hotels are almost full up during the weekdays and almost every weekend
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During the peak season in London hotels industry (May to End of July), hotels will be full up almost everyday. We find it even difficult, as agents, to get rooms for our clients who have found our web sites and have made enquiries by email or phone to book hotel rooms. Some dates ahead are already full up in many of the hotels in London. Even at certain times, some of the hotels become overbooked and have to book out some of their guests to other hotels. As hotel reservation agency, we are even finding it a bit difficult to get rooms for our clients because most of the hotels have logged onto our system to close out some dates.

I have tried to investigate why the industry has not suffered like all other industries and the few reasons I can assign to this are that, may be it is because the Pound has become cheaper in the eyes of the travellers from other countries they feel it is cheaper to have your holidays in London or to come and do your shopping here. At the same time, one will have to note that, the pound was not that cheap for the whole of last year. Or is it that London is so popular and so important that, no matter the economic crisis, people will still have to travel to the city? I will, however, still be monitoring the situation closely in the coming months. If the London hotel industry starts to experience a slow down, then the very few that will be travelling to London will gain a lot from it. This is because they will be guaranteed special London hotel offers, cheap London hotels accommodation and also cheap London bed and breakfast rates.