With Easter weekend falling slightly later this year, the prospect of a sunny long weekend is proving popular with strong hotel bookings across European cities according to hotel market intelligence provider TravelClick, which uses its forward-looking data to offer industry insight into European travel trends.
Currently, Barcelona (Spain) is showing particularly strong growth over the bank holiday weekend 18-21 April 2014 with an increase in hotel bookings of 117.2 per cent compared with Easter weekend in 2013 (29 March-1 April).
Germany's cool capital, Berlin, is also drawing in the Easter bookings, with one in three hotel rooms filled for the nights of Friday 18 April and Saturday 19 April (31.4 per cent and 32.2 per cent respectively). Overall committed occupancy for the long weekend is up 113.4 per cent based on last year. Group bookings to the city are also proving strong with an annual increase of 133.2 per cent for the weekend overall, Good Friday is showing staggering growth with committed occupancy for groups up 179.7 per cent.
In the UK, data from TravelClick is showing more than a quarter of London hotel rooms are filled for Good Friday and Easter Saturday (25.1 per cent and 28.5 per cent respectively). The capital's hoteliers are enjoying positive year-over-year growth with an increase in committed occupancy of 18.8 per cent on last Easter.
Continuing where 2013 left off, when Prague (Czech Republic) saw a record number of tourists visit the city, strong growth continues with an overall increase in bookings of 77 per cent for the Easter weekend.
Romantic city breaks to Paris (France) continue to grow in popularity with one fifth of hotel rooms booked over the weekend (average of 20.7 per cent 18-21 April), an increase of 43.4 per cent. Group trips to the French capital are also showing an increase, with bookings up 45.8 per cent compared with Easter 2013.
Other popular European destinations for the upcoming Easter weekend are Venice and Warsaw where bookings for the bank holiday celebration are up by 18.2 per cent and 21.6 per cent year over year respectively.
Information is based on data collated by TravelClick on 7 January 2014 from 111 London hotels with a combined capacity of 25,831; eight Berlin hotels with a combined capacity of 2,472; 15 Barcelona hotels with a combined capacity of 3,187; 16 Paris hotels with a combined capacity of 5,189; eight Venice hotels with a combined capacity of 1,393; 11 Prague hotels with a combined capacity of 2,969 and five Warsaw hotels with a combined capacity of 1,657.
