Hotel rooms in Aberdeen are still generating the highest revenues outside London despite Scottish accommodation being caught up in the UK-wide slump.
Figures compiled by accountant PKF show that room yield for Scottish hotels, the industry measure of revenue, was 10.3per cent down in February compared to the year before. UK-wide it is off 13.4per cent.
There are signs that both business and leisure travellers are staying at home as occupancy levels north of the border fell by 5.2per cent compared to a drop of 7.7per cent UK-wide.
Occupancy rates are continuing to decline for both leisure and business travel in the year to the end of February, compared to the year before.
This has led to a fall of more than 10per cent in room yields at hotels in the key destinations of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen.
But room yield in the granite city was still GBP61.41, the highest outside London according to PKF, albeit down GBP7.67 on the year before.
This compares to yield of GBP55.30 in Edinburgh and GBP46.57 in Glasgow.
PKF partner Alastair Rae said: "The deteriorating economic climate coupled with some severe weather conditions have combined to make the start to 2009 pretty challenging for Scottish hoteliers.
"There is now ample evidence of reduced spending in both the leisure and business markets, resulting in continuing falls in both occupancy and rooms yield.
"This is occurring across the UK and there is no city or region in our survey which has not had a decline in occupancy and rooms yield since the start of the year.
"The reduction in both occupancy and rooms yield is broadly in line with the other parts of the UK, so this is, as would be expected, a sector wide reduction which is unlikely to pick up until there are some signs of a recovery in the wider economy."
