. In December, room occupancy rates across the UK were up 0.7% on last year's figures, room rate dropped slightly by 2.2%, and rooms yield was down by 1.5%. But when the south east's airport hotels' figures are excluded from the sample, both room occupancy and rooms yield figures are up on December 2000 figures.

And even in London there are signs of improvement. Room occupancy rates were down 11.8% on December 2000, room rate down 7.9% and rooms yield down by 18.2%. However, these show a considerable improvement on the 27% and 34.1% drops in rooms yield for November and October 2001 respectively.

Melvin Gold, Managing Director of Hotel Consultancy Services at PKF, said: 'The regional hotel performance figures are very encouraging overall and, in the main, hoteliers will take comfort from these figures. There are still signs of weakness, especially around the airports in the south east of the country and at the upper end of the market. However, we do not believe the industry will be complacent about these results - 2002's out-turn will depend on UK economic performance as much as anything else.