At the Buell Business Exchange in London on 3 November 2026, Aoife Roche, Regional Vice President, Sales – EMEA at CoStar, presented the latest STR/CoStar hospitality data. For UK hotels, the headline was steady. Between January and September 2026, occupancy averaged 78% at an average daily rate (ADR) of £125.
Demand is still there. The detail in the presentation shows how differently it plays out depending on where your hotel is and what kind of hotel it is, and that detail matters more to a 2027 marketing plan than the national figure does.
- 78%UK hotel occupancy
- £125UK average daily rate (ADR)
One national average, many markets
Over the same January to September period, Edinburgh hotels averaged 85% occupancy, Glasgow 82% and London 80%. All three sit above the UK figure.
- Edinburgh85%
- Glasgow82%
- London80%
- UK78%
Source: STR/CoStar, presented at the Buell Business Exchange, London, 3 November 2026. Occupancy is the share of available rooms sold.
Rates tell a different story. ADR was £191 in London, £177 in Edinburgh and £107 in Glasgow, against £125 for the UK. Glasgow filled a higher share of its rooms than the UK as a whole, at a lower average rate. Edinburgh combined high occupancy with a high rate.
- London£191
- Edinburgh£177
- UK£125
- Glasgow£107
Source: STR/CoStar, presented at the Buell Business Exchange, London, 3 November 2026. ADR is the average price of an occupied room. It is not RevPAR or profit.
Neither number measures profit. Occupancy tells you how full hotels were and ADR tells you the average price of an occupied room. They are not revenue per available room (RevPAR), and they say nothing about costs or commission. A hotel can post strong occupancy at the wrong rate, or with too many bookings arriving through commissionable channels, and still struggle.
The presentation also separated regional UK from London. In the regions, luxury hotels led performance. In London, new supply was a headwind for economy hotels. CoStar described UK demand growth as soft, and cautioned that the strongest growth months partly reflect weaker comparisons with the year before.
So the national average is a poor guide on its own. The more useful question for a hotelier is how hotels like yours, in your market, are performing.
Rate growth, and who is getting it
UK ADR grew 2.3% year on year between January and September 2026. Several European markets grew faster over the same period: Italy by 9.0%, France by 8.4%, Greece by 7.3% and Spain by 5.5%. CoStar's chart compares these countries in euros at constant currency, so the UK figure here is on that basis rather than a sterling growth rate.
- Italy9.0%
- France8.4%
- Greece7.3%
- Spain5.5%
- UK2.3%
Source: STR/CoStar, presented at the Buell Business Exchange, London, 3 November 2026. Measured in euros at constant currency, as in CoStar’s chart.
The clearest rate story was at the top end. In CoStar's consistent sample of European luxury hotels, 80% grew their ADR between January and July 2026. That is the share of hotels in the sample that raised their rate, not the size of the increase, and it covers European luxury hotels rather than every UK property.
- 80%of European luxury hotels in CoStar’s consistent sample grew their ADR
Our reading is that rate growth has gone to hotels that give guests a clear reason to pay more. That does not mean any hotel can raise its prices and keep its occupancy. Rate growth is also not the same as real-terms growth or higher profit once rising costs are counted.
Looking ahead, CoStar expects 2027 to be another rate-led year, with forecasts varying by market. That was its outlook at the date of the presentation, not a guaranteed outcome. For wider context, global room demand grew 1.4% year on year from January to September 2026, compared with 1.3% over the same period in 2025.
Four things to do with this in your 2027 plan
These are our recommendations, based on how we plan campaigns with hotels. CoStar's data describes market conditions; it doesn't test which marketing actions work.
1. Benchmark against a relevant local competitive set. Compare your hotel with properties of a similar type and price in your own market, not with the UK average. An Edinburgh hotel at 80% occupancy is behind its city. The same figure elsewhere might put a hotel ahead of its local market. Start your marketing targets from the competitive set your revenue team already tracks.
2. Make the value of a stay obvious. If the market is rate-led, guests need to see what they are paying for before they book. That means photography and video that show the real experience, room and package pages with specifics, and reviews that back them up. The view, the breakfast, the five-minute walk to the venue: show them early and plainly.
3. Time campaigns to local demand. Map when your market fills and when it doesn't: events, conferences, festivals, school holidays and the need dates your revenue team flags. Put spend behind the softer periods and the booking windows you want to move, rather than paying to win nights that would sell anyway.
4. Review the direct booking path and measure what bookings are worth. Go from an ad or a search result to a confirmed booking on your phone and note every point of friction. Then measure booking value (rate, length of stay, extras) alongside the cost of winning each booking, and compare channels on what you keep after commission as well as on volume.
Turning market context into a plan
The figures from the Buell Business Exchange give a clear picture of the market. Turning them into a plan for one hotel means working out where you sit in your local market, which dates need help and what guests are paying for.
If you'd like to talk through your 2027 marketing plan with that context in mind, give us a shout.
Source: CoStar Hospitality Analytics & Insights: Buell Consulting, presented by Aoife Roche at the Buell Business Exchange, London, 3 November 2026. Data © 2026 CoStar Group. Figures cover January to September 2026 unless stated; the European luxury sample covers January to July 2026. None are full-year 2026 results.
