Why It Matters Hotel Accommodation
Summary
We have identified all the hotels located within a 800 metre radius (a 10 minute walking distance) of a selected postcode.
Definition
Our Hotels metric shows you how many hotels of each category are present within a 10-minute walk of your area and how this level compares to the rest of London.
Interpretation
| Dataset | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Total Number of Hotels and Other Guest Accommodations Within 800m of Postcode | This shows the number of hotels within 800 metres of this postcode that fall into the following categories: Unrated Hotels (hotels with no stars); Rated Hotels (hotels with 1 to 5 stars); Bed and Breakfasts (Accommodation provided in a private house by the owner for up to six paying guests); Guest Houses (Accommodation for more than six paying guests, with the owner and staff providing more services, eg dinner); Hostels (a form of low-cost, short-term logding typically characterised by shared rooms and facilities); Holiday Homes (an accommodation establishment intended for holidays where the entire accommodation facility is rented out. |
| Total Number of Hotels Within 800m | This shows the number of hotels (rated and unrated) within 800 metres of this postcode. |
| Total Number of Unrated Hotels Within 800m | This shows the number of unrated hotels (no stars) within 800 metres of this postcode. |
| Total Number of 1 and 2 star Hotels Within 800m | This shows the number of unrated hotels (no stars) within 800 metres of this postcode that would be deemed as AA/Visit Britain One Star Hotel Rating or Two Star Hotel Rating. |
| Total Number of 3 and 4 star Hotels Within 800m | This shows the number of unrated hotels (no stars) within 800 metres of this postcode that would be deemed as AA/Visit Britain Three Star Hotel Rating or Four Star Hotel Rating. |
| Total Number of 5 star Hotels Within 800m | This shows the number of unrated hotels (no stars) within 800 metres of this postcode that would be deemed as AA/Visit Britain Five Star Hotel Rating. |
| Number of Bed and Breakfasts Within 800m | This shows the number of bed and breakfasts within 800 metres of this postcode. |
| Number of Hostels Within 800m | This shows the number of hostels within 800 metres of this postcode. |
| Number of Guest Houses Within 800m | This shows the number of guest houses within 800 metres of this postcode. |
| Number of Holiday Homes Within 800m | This shows the number of holiday homes within 800 metres of this postcode. |
| Walulel Hotel Perception Score | This is a rescaled score based on the London-wide range of Total Number of Hotels within 800m. The rescaled value is found by multiplying each member of a data set by a constant known as “k” so that the harmonised (i.e. rescaled) scores represent a spread between 0 and 100 without changing the nature of the data distribution. The resultant harmonised score makes it very easy to determine whether the Total Number of Hotels within 800m of a neighbourhood area is high as compared the London average (because it is a number closer to 100) or low relative to the London average because it is a number closer to 0). |
| Quartile of Walulel Hotel Perception Score of all Hotels in each postcode | This shows you which quartile your neighbourhood area’s Hotel Perception Score falls within. |
Why the metric matters from a commercial inhabitant’s perspective
The quantum and clustering of hotel (as indicated by high Hotel Perception Score) is a key consideration as to whether an area is likely to benefit from the benefits of tourist custom as more often than not (and frequently unknowingly) tourists seek to reduce their hotel search costs by choosing an area previously known to them or one which becomes reveals itself as an obvious choice by virtue of it being home to cluster of hotels.
For hotels themselves, as they operate in a sector in which the majority of their potential customers perceive there to be great product heterogeneity, with the main differentials being in relation to: proximity to attractive locations; building design; room capacity; atmosphere and service quality. Clustering, makes them more visible to potential customers who already spend a large amount of time choosing the “right” hotel and are unlikely to spend extra time seeking out less visible hotels. Paradoxically, clustering may be costly as well as proximity can increase direct competition, at least in relation to geographic location, however this has been shown to be of negligible effect where the clustering is amongst hotels of different categories.
Why the metric matters from a residential inhabitant’s perspective
A high Hotel Perception Score matters from a residential inhabitant’s perspective for three main reasons. Firstly, it is likely to indicate that the area is going to be positively or negatively affected by a portion of the population being transient in nature. The positive effects of transient populations include an increase in demand for shared economy lettings such as Airbnb and Onefinestay for example. Additionally, transient populations often place no burden on community medical and educational infrastructure. The negative effects of transient populations relate to the fact that as they are unlikely to be long term community stakeholders, they are often less concerned with the spikes in traffic, noise and public transport use their presence may cause. Likewise, transient populations are less likely to be interested in partaking in long term community enhancement activities.
The traditional view is that urban tourism is a direct result of the attribution of urban land to hotel. Without proper hotel facilities even the most richly attractive city was traditionally thought of being unable to become a major tourist centre. Furthermore, the location of the accommodation facilities within a city has been considered to be crucial to its success. When Ellsworth Statler, widely considered to be the father of the modern hotel industry, stated that the three most important factors in the success of a hotel are location, location and location, he uttered a truism that has yet to be disproven. The proximity of the accommodation facilities to the London’s attractions, such as shopping and entertainment centres and the cultural resources, is still considered by developers and investors as a necessary condition for success. The underlying assumption behind this is that, the typical tourist or transient inhabitant in need of hotel accommodation, wants to exert as little effort as possible and therefore, prefers staying in accommodations within PO walking distance of choice attractions. If this assumption is believed, a High Hotel Perception Score can be used as a proxy measure for the extent to which an area is able to attract visitors. Unfortunately however, things are not that simple due to the fact that the relatively recent diversion of scarce land from business and housing to hotel use has brought about a sharp increase in the price of land, which in turn, has forced developers to cluster luxury hotels which can give a reasonable rate of return on their investments only by their charging high rates and thus distorting the spatial distribution of hotels.
More recently, in order to maintain the viability of this hotels planning, authorities have sought to redistribute hotels outside of London’s centre. However it will be sometime before conclusions can be drawn as to whether the suburbs can bear much hotel land use and maintain London’s the attractiveness to its visitors.
The grand St Pancras Renaissance Hotel in King’s Cross, reopened in 2011, was one of the first hotels in the UK, originally opened in 1873 as the Midland Grand Hotel (Photograph: Wikimedia Commons)
Trivia
London has two Grade I listed hotels: the French chateau-modelled, five-star Royal Horseguards Hotel in Whitehall; and the St Pancras Renaissance London. Royal Horseguards Hotel was once home/office for MI6 chief Sir Mansfield Cumming (the alleged inspiration for ‘M’ from James Bond).
History
It wasn’t until the 19th century that London began to see a rise in the traditional type of hotels we know of these days. Even then they tended to be much smaller in size than their counter parts in America. Historically lodging in London was the preserve of guests houses (or lodging houses as they were known) and coaching inns. There wasn’t a tourist industry as we see today and the rich would tend to rent accommodation rather than stay in a hotel.
Coaching Inns provided two facilities for mail and stage coaches. Firstly, they allowed teams of horses to be changed for fresh ones and they also served the stage coach passengers with a place to sleep and eat. Until the railway network became widespread after the 1830’s, stage coaches were the main form of mass transportation for the public. Today just a single example of the old coaching inns remains, the George Inn on Borough High Street in Southwark.