The heat wave in Europe had little effect on the hotels
Last week was Europe's worst heat wave ever, which seems to be a recurring trend due to the lack of infrastructure in the area. The dangerous climate began around June 20th in the Iberian Peninsula and spread up north throughout the coming week, with extremely high temperatures being noted in almost 20 countries. The warm nights, buildings that are built to retain heat, and homes that do not accommodate air conditioners made for a very uncomfortable and even dangerous week. The travelers were not left untouched as well. Although air conditioners can be more commonly found in hotels rather than in houses, museums and other places of interest closed down earlier or entirely because of the heat wave.
However, the hospitality sector did not seem to be affected by the phenomenon.
High-end hotel occupancy rose year-over-year on every night of the week for the week ending 27 June, indicating continued international arrivals and strong corporate and group bookings.Occupancy levels at select-service and budget hotels fell during the middle of the week, although positive growth on Thursday through Saturday suggests an increasing leisure clientele.
Capital markets support demand
On the market level, capital cities in Southern and Eastern Europe witnessed the largest growth in occupancy, while Northern capital cities have been losing occupancy in comparison with 2025. Still, many markets' occupancy growth was consistent with the previous three weeks' trend, implying limited to non-existent effect of the heat wave. Exceptions to the trend included Amsterdam, Brussels and Prague, whose occupancy levels increased well above their monthly average owing to strong growth on the weekend. Such increases may be attributed to "staycations" of local residents leaving hot homes for air-conditioned hotels.
Even in some of the lowest-performing markets, heat effects are not obvious right away. The majority of the markets that are outliers, such as Bratislava, Oslo Area, Tallinn, and Vilnius, have occupancy decreases that are greater for the week ending 27 June because of event offsets or strong supply growth. Nine out of 10 markets saw increased occupancy because of the heat and seasonality. This is the case in the current week as compared to the last three.
Occupancy for Cyprus turned out to be the best-performing market due to the peace deal between the U.S. and Iran. Occupancy began declining in March and decreased by 9.2% on a year-over-year basis until the third week of June.
French hotels perform well during heat waves
All of Europe has experienced an effect of heat last week, but France is one of those most affected countries where the highest temperature was recorded. Hotels did not feel the heat and performed well, with occupancy increasing by 2.0% to 79.9%, which is the highest growth rate among the big five countries and the best growth rate in Europe.
It was quite widespread throughout the country, as occupancy in Paris and other cities increased. The occupancy of coastal market showed the best results, partly thanks to the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity that took place in the Antibes/Cannes submarket. The occupancy in the submarket increased by 15.2% compared to the previous year and occupied the third place among all submarkets in France with 88.5%. Demand from international travelers and staycation travelers pushed up occupancy for the week. Occupancy of luxury and upper upscale hotels increased by 5.2% week over week, closely followed by midscale and economy classes at 3.6% growth. The latter indicates staycation travel, as people search for an affordable way to escape hot weather. Recent trends confirm that, as occupancy of midscale and economy class has been flat or decreasing during most of June, and only began growing year over year in the last week. At the market level, midscale and economy hotels had the highest occupancy growth among all classes in seven out of 11 markets.
Paris performance becomes successful because of fashion week
The mid-week occupancy was stable and slightly lower, while the weekend occupancy grew by 3.1% and increased occupancy of the week by 0.7% compared to 2025. Such a slight decrease is not associated with the hot weather, but rather with occupancy itself. It is quite usual to observe small year-over-year changes at high occupancy rates, and in Paris, on average, occupancy was 92.2% during Monday-Wednesday period. In four out of eight sub-markets, there were some decreases in occupancy. Yet, all four markets experienced the same occupancy drops in the first three weeks of June, indicating that the drop observed last week was not associated with the heatwave. Even though the biggest heatwave of this year hit Europe and made life of people really hard, the occupancy of hotels was not affected. The coastal markets were slightly benefiting, as well as the midscale and economy hotels.
