The Pandox Q1 Presentation for 2025. During the Q&A session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key, five on their telephone keypad. Now, I will hand the conference over to Head of IR and Communication, Anders Berg . Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning and welcome to this presentation of Pandox Interim Report for Q1 2025. I'm here together with Liia Nõu , our CEO, and Anneli Lindblom , our CFO. Today, we also have the pleasure of having both Alex Robinson, Director at STR, and Rasmus Kjellman, Managing Director at Benchmarking Alliance, with us. Alex and Rasmus will provide a hotel market update on Europe and Nordics, respectively, which is particularly interesting given the current geo-economic changes around the globe.
STR and Benchmarking Alliance are both leading independent research firms dedicated to the hotel market, and the views they express are completely separate from Pandox. The presentations are offered only as a service to Pandox stakeholders. Alex and Rasmus' presentations will be held after we have completed our formal earnings presentation, including the Q&A. Now, we start with Liia Nõu's business update and the financial highlights for Q1 2025, followed by the Q&A session. Yes, Liia, please go ahead.
Thank you, Anders. Good morning and welcome, everyone. The Q1 was stable, with continued earnings growth for the group. Total revenues increased by 1%, net operating income by 5%, and cash earnings in total increased by 10% and by share by 4%. Taking into account the one-off revenue last year of SEK 40 million, total revenues increased by 4%.
The business segment, leases, saw a stable performance, again adjusted for a one-time revenue of SEK 40 million for Cologne Bonn Airport and a one-time cost of SEK 38 million for business development in the comparable quarter. Revenue and net operating income increased by 6%, respectively. I also want to note that an additional final SEK 22 million of one-off revenue related to Cologne Bonn Airport came in in Q2 last year. Own operations was negatively affected by slower demand, particularly in Brussels, and also some negative renovation effects.
The Q1 is always smaller because of seasonality, and slower demand can have an unproportionally big impact on profitability in own operations. The business outlook for the coming quarters in own operations is positive. One thing to note is that the Swedish krona appreciated in value quite strongly towards the end of Q1. This resulted in large negative translation effects for properties denominated in foreign currencies, which in turn explains the full decrease in EPRA NAV per share in the quarter.
Unrealized changes in values for the whole portfolio amounted to a positive SEK 40 million, and the weighted yield was more or less unchanged at 6.28%. Our average interest rate came in at 3.9%, giving us a solid positive yield spread of close to 240 basis points. During the quarter, our business tempo was high with the acquisition of Hotel Pullman Cologne in Germany and Elite Hotel Frost in Kiruna in Sweden, which I will come back to later in this presentation.
We also signed a new lease in Brussels for Hotel Hubert with German hotel operator Numa, which came into force on April 1st, and the hotel property was reclassified to leases also on April 1st. These new lease agreements will lead to a tangible value uplift for the hotel property in Q2. End-of-quarter loan-to-value was 45.7%. If we include the paid dividend and the finalized acquisition in Germany, both in April, the loan-to-value was 47.4%.
The world is a turbulent place. We focus on the data and the things we can affect in our business every day, and our financial position is solid. Here we have a breakdown of the performance for a selection of countries, regions, and cities versus last year, 2024. We show average daily rate on the vertical axis and occupancy on the horizontal axis. Thus, origin is the point corresponding to 2024 on both ADR and occupancy. In the boxes, we indicate how much higher or lower RevPAR is compared with the corresponding period 2024.
As you can see, in Q1, RevPAR increased in a majority of our markets, mostly driven by increased occupancy, while average prices were more varied. In terms of RevPAR, the greatest relative improvements in Q1 took place in Nordic regional markets, with Norway as a really strong leader. Oslo, Copenhagen, and Hanover were also strong city markets. However, several important markets for Pandox were slower in Q1, and most notably Brussels, where there has been a lot of new capacity coming in.
Alex Robinson from STR and Rasmus Kjellman from Benchmarking Alliance will talk more about the underlying trends in the hotel market later in this call. We have a strong and well-diversified hotel property portfolio consisting of 162 hotel properties with approximately 36,000 rooms in 11 countries and 90 cities, and with a property market value of close to SEK 74 billion, with an average yield of close to 6.3%. Please note that the Hotel Pullman Cologne is not included since the transaction was closed on April 1st, and that we have yet to formally finalize the acquisition of Elite Hotel Frost in Kiruna, Sweden.
We are divided into two mutually supportive and reinforcing business segments: leases and own operations. In leases, where we own and lease out hotel properties, stands for 79% of our property market value. In own operations, we transform and run hotels in properties we own. Own operations makes up for 21% of our property market value. The focus of our portfolio is upper-mid-market hotels with mostly domestic demand, which is the backbone of the hotel market, regardless of which phase of the hotel market cycle it is in.
We also have the strongest networks of brands and partners in the hotel property industry. This ensures efficient operations and revenue management, which maximizes cash flow and property values, and a continuous flow of business opportunities. Also, a relatively large part of the investment in leases is shared with the tenant, which lowers our risk. Numa from Germany is our most recent partner addition, and we would like to wish them a warm welcome to the Pandox ecosystem.
Including Elite Hotel Frost in Kiruna, which will be finalized later in Q2, we have acquired six hotel properties with a total value of some SEK 5.5 billion over the past eight months. These are well-performing city hotels with strong brands and distribution, while offering some additional improvement potential. I will present the two most recent additions on the following slides.
On April 1st, we finalized the acquisition of Hotel Pullman Cologne in Germany. It is a well-positioned city center hotel, which is operated by Accor Invest under a fixed lease, which expires end of 2026. We acquired it for EUR 66 million at an initial yield of 6.5%. We see potential to further increase the return and reach a higher stabilized yield. Cologne is an interesting market, which is gradually attracting more leisure demand on top of the more traditional business and trade fair demand. We now have four hotel properties in Cologne with a total of 995 rooms.
This is the beautiful Elite Hotel Frost in Kiruna, Sweden, which we entered into an agreement to acquire in March. It is a newly built hotel, which will be operated by Elite Hotels under a revenue-based lease with minimum guaranteed rent. We expect the transaction to be finalized towards the end of Q2, when the hotel also opens for the first time. The acquisition price is SEK 347 million, and we expect it to reach a stabilized yield of 7%. The acquisition is well aligned with our view on the northern part of the Nordic area as an attractive region with growing demand from both domestic and international leisure travelers looking for unique nature experiences.
We focus on maximizing the value of each individual hotel property. We do this by creating attractive hotel products and properties based on the uniqueness of each property. Own operation is an important transformation tool. It gives us flexibility in acquisitions and enables us to drive change at a high speed. Perhaps most important for us, optionality by itself. It is a key value driver, and we work actively to maximize it, all with the objective to create continuous value growth. On the following slides, I will show you a few examples of recent investment projects in our standing portfolio.
The first project is a comprehensive upgrade of Leonardo Royal Hotel Baden-Baden, which featured a new spa area and renovation of both rooms and public areas. The project was completed in Q1. Baden-Baden is an iconic wellness destination in Germany dominated by leisure demand. The new product has been very well received by guests, and the hotel property belongs to the business area leases.
The second project is a room, bathroom, and technical upgrade of Leonardo Royal Frankfurt. Rooms and bathrooms were completed also in Q1 2025, and technical investments will be completed in Q2 this year. Frankfurt is a strong business meeting and trade fair destination with mostly business demand. Also, here, the new product has been very well received by guests, and the hotel property is also part of the business area leases.
The third project is a spa area development on two floors at Vildmarkshotellet Kolmården in Sweden. In addition, the hotel's energy systems have been completely upgraded with heat pumps, and the project was also completed in Q1 of 2025. Kolmården houses Sweden's largest animal park and is a strong leisure destination, particularly in the summer season. With the development of the spa, Vildmarkshotellet will improve its possibilities to capture more demand also during seasons when the animal park is closed. The hotel property is again part of the business area leases.
The fourth project I will present here is the refurbishment of the Hotel Hubert in Brussels, which includes a mini spa on the top floor, renovation of rooms, and the addition of five new guest rooms. The spa was completed again in Q1 this year, while room upgrades will be finalized during the summer. Brussels is one of the most international hotel markets in Europe. It has traditionally been dominated by EU, non-government organizations, and business demand. In recent years, leisure demand has steadily increased. The hotel property is part of the business area own operations.
With that, I hand over to Anneli Lindblom, our CFO.
Thank you, Liia. Good morning, everyone. In Q1, Group net operating income increased by 5%, driven by the acquisitions and stable performance in the lease business segment. Own operations had a weaker start to the year due to a slower hotel market in mainly Brussels and some renovation and reclassification effects. The first quarter is always weaker because of seasonality, and slower demand can have an unproportionately big impact on profitability in own operations.
We have estimated that the timing of Easter, compared with last year, was largely neutralized by the loss of one day due to the leap year in Q1 last year. Cash earnings and profit before changes in value both increased by 10%, and cash earnings per share increased by 4%. Now, a few words on currency. To reduce the currency exposure in foreign investments, Pandox aims to finance the investment in local currency. Equity is normally not hedged, as Pandox's strategy is to have a long investment perspective. Currency exposures are largely in the form of currency translation effects.
In Q1, currency was neutral measured on average rate, which we used for the income statement, but negative measured on end-of-period rates, which are used for the balance sheet. As you know, we have the main part of our hotel properties outside Sweden and denominated in foreign currencies. This explains the negative effect on property values and EPRA NAV based on the balance sheet. Based on the current level of exchange rates, it is likely average rate will be lower in Q2, which with some negative translation effects on our income statement in Q2.
On this slide, we show the change in the main valuation parameters for the total property portfolio year to date. Please remember that the investment properties are recognized at fair value, but according to IFRS, unrealized changes in value for operating properties are only reported for information purposes and are included in EPRA NRV. In Q1 2025, the total unrealized changes in value were a positive SEK 14 million.
The first quarter is always a weaker quarter with limited read-through for the rest of the year. As I said earlier, changes in currency had a negative impact on the balance sheet items, with a decline in property value of minus SEK 3.4 billion in Q1. In Q1, we gained access to Radisson Blu Tromsø with a transaction value of NOK 750 million. We also signed an agreement to acquire Hotel Pullman Cologne, but this transaction was not closed until April 1st , so this one will be seen in Q2.
We also signed an agreement to acquire Elite Hotel Frost in Kiruna, as Liia said, which is expected to be completed during Q2. End of period, the average valuation yield for investment properties was 6.13%, and for operating property, it was 6.89%. The blended yield was 6.28%. Here we have the average yield, the average interest on debt, and EPRA NRV per share quarterly from the end of 2019. Despite higher yields and higher market interest rates, EPRA NRV per share has increased compared with 2019, and we have a tangible and positive yield spread of around 240 basis points.
In Q1, growth in EPRA NRV was positive, 2.1%, measured on an annual basis, adjusted for paid dividend, and proceeds from the new share issue. Our LTV at the end of the quarter amounted to 45.7%, which pushed us firmly at the lower end of our policy range. Including the acquisition of Hotel Pullman Cologne, completed Q1, and the dividend paid in mid-April, the LTV is 47.4%. The ICR on a rolling 12-month basis was flat and was 2.7 times on a sequential basis.
Cash and credit facilities amounted to SEK 3.4 billion, and on top of that, we still have unencumbered assets of some SEK 1.4 billion as an untapped reserve. During the quarter, the positive trend from last year continued with a constructive financing climate with gradually lower credit margins. In Q1, we refinanced loans of SEK 428 million, which makes it close to SEK 18 billion refinanced over the last 12 months. We now have, at the end of the quarter, 42% of total outstanding loans sustainability-linked.
Looking ahead, we have SEK 3.4 billion on debt maturing within one year, of which the major part is in Q2 2025. We have strong and expanding bank relations across our markets, and discussions on future financing and refinancing are ongoing and positive. At the moment, 67% of the net debt is hedged, which means that the effect from momentum market rates remains relatively slow. With that, I will hand back to Liia for some final remarks.
Thank you, Anneli. The hotel market continues to show resilience and is supported by strong underlying growth drivers. Leisure travelers have continuously prioritized travel and experiences over other consumption, and business demand has gradually recovered. The hotel market is dependent on economic activity, and the current turmoil around tariffs has created some uncertainty among companies. However, so far, business on the books is stable.
Although we are facing tough comps due to the Euro 2024 in Germany last year, there's a nice event calendar in the U.K., and the trade fair calendar in Germany is solid for the second half. Indications are that European travelers are canceling or postponing their trips to the U.S. at a much higher rate than U.S. travelers to Europe, which so far has been stable. Some, but not all, European travelers will probably reschedule their travel to other European destinations instead, which may add support to the European hotel market.
As before, we also expect a positive contribution from acquisitions and investments in our existing portfolio. My final note: we are committed to keeping up our positive business momentum. We focus on the data and what we can affect in our business. We are always on the hunt for more profitable acquisitions, more high-yielding investments, and to create value in every part of the hotel value chain. With that, we now move over to the Q&A. Operator, we are now ready for questions.
To ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Staffan Bülow from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and thank you. I hope that you can hear me.
Yes, we can.
Absolutely.
Perfect. I have a couple of questions. I think I'll ask them individually. Starting off with the outlook for RevPAR growth, I think in the last conference call you mentioned that you expect RevPAR to grow 0-4% in 2025. Do you still see that following the turbulent macro environment in Q1?
Yes. In the short term, of course, there is more uncertainty, but there is nothing supporting otherwise so far. With the underlying trends that European travelers are canceling their trips to the U.S., U.S. travelers to Europe is stable, even though it is expected to probably diminish a little bit. We are still sort of—we are not changing that guidance in itself. Of course, there is, as everybody else noticed, more turmoil and uncertainty in the short term.
Okay, I see. Thank you. Also, another question on demand, so to say. In Q1, we saw some U.S. airline companies lower their guidance, and they mainly commented on this being driven by weaker domestic travel. One might, of course, worry that this might spread to Europe. Is it possible to quantify demand from domestic travelers and international travelers in your portfolio? Let's say if we would see a significant decrease of U.S. travelers to Europe, how big is your exposure to cities with large demand from the U.S.?
Yeah.
All in all, as you know, our portfolio is mainly domestic and local demand. Maybe 15% is international demand, whether that would be sort of intra-European, U.S., etc., etc. Again, we believe that the net effect of—only in March, we saw a 17% reduction of European travelers going to the U.S., so we think it's a net positive. There will, of course, be some net balance of that. On top of that, of course, a more unified and stronger Europe, hopefully, will also create more economic activity and will sort of give more growth in Europe. All net net, we do expect it to be stable or positive.
Okay. Interesting. I have a question. If we look into Q2 and considering Q2 last year when the European Championship took place, I'm wondering if it's reasonable to expect that we will have negative like-for-like growth in revenue owing to very tough comps in Q2 last year.
Yeah. There's a lot of moving pieces, but I think what I mentioned on the call, we had the one-off also in Q2 of SEK 22 million in revenue, all related to the same one-off we had in Q1 with the Cologne Airport. This was related to an argument around the hotel for two or three years, and we finally won that, and all of that revenue was then contributed in SEK 40 million in Q1 and SEK 22 million in the second quarter.
We are meeting tough comps. We are meeting Euro 2024. We are meeting Taylor Swift, etc., etc. Then again, business on the books and also the trade fairs underlying market, we do expect it to be sort of not materially different. We will be offset, but of course, we are meeting tough comps. Also in Q2, we had the sort of Easter, whereas we now have the sort of Easter effect. All in all, it should be sort of not too dramatic changes. I do not know, Anneli, if you want to add to that.
I think that is—I mean, it is kind of stable.
Yeah. Okay, I see. I have a question on net operating income. I think from my point of view, net operating income from leases surprised positively, and net operating income from own operations was a bit weaker than what I expected, at least. Just looking at net operating income from own operations in Q1, I think it was SEK 87 million this quarter, SEK 91 million one year ago, and like-for-like revenue was down a bit. Would you say that this is something temporary, that like-for-like in own operations was negative, or should we extrapolate this in own operation s?
No. I think Q1 as such is a slow quarter. We had, especially Brussels, a weak quarter and slightly disappointing with a lot more new capacity, but not in a dramatic way. What is sort of disturbing is that we had two hotels, DoubleTree by Hilton Brussels and Mayfair Brussels, under renovation. We reclassified 1st April Hotel Hubert to the lease segment where we signed the lease with Numa. Before that, in March, the hotel was, to a large extent, closed.
There are a lot of moving pieces back and forth. Of course, also sort of it's the slowest or the smallest quarter, meaning that fixed costs will have maybe an unproportionately large impact. The margin was 13%. Last year, the margin was 14% in own operations. This is absolutely the slowest quarter. Business on the books, when it looks coming next coming quarters, are more in line with BRIPO.
I see. That's clear. Thank you. One final question from me, and that is about the outlook for acquisitions. You've announced two acquisitions in Q1 at high yields. Looking into the next 12 months, do you still see similar opportunities in your graphics and at the same yields, or has anything changed on the outlook for acquisitions?
No real change in acquisitions. As I said, we are on the hunt. We like value-creative acquisitions, especially U.K., Germany, and the Nordic region. The last turmoil is, of course, putting maybe the interest rates on hold, but we do not know that yet. Then again, uncertainty sometimes creates even more opportunities for us to find attractive transactions. We basically have the same—we see the same amount of opportunities going forward.
Great. Thank you. Those were my questions. Thank you for answering them.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Fredrik Stensved from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.
Thank you and good morning. If we start with a couple of follow-ups on demand, Liia, you mentioned in the CEO statement that Brussels was slightly weaker in Q1, but the booking situation for Q2 is solid. Is that a Brussels-specific comment, or is it for the portfolio or the booking situation for the whole portfolio in general?
I think we can actually say it is the situation for the whole portfolio in general. Q1, again, is a slow quarter, started out with a lot of turmoil, especially corporates maybe postponed some of their sort of group travel, etc. Otherwise, the business on the books looks to be aligned with last year. We are positive on that.
Perfect. Just to make sure, when you refer to the booking situation, is that an occupancy figure only, or is it occupancy and pricing, or is it total RevPAR that goes into that booking figure?
It is occupancy in general. What we can see maybe is that so far, with the exception of Norway, the RevPAR has been sort of increasing, but it is more occupancy-driven than ADR-driven. You see actually some cities where the ADR has actually gone down, like for London, for example. Business on the books, occupancy-driven, absolutely.
Understood. A question on lending margins. You point out that new acquisitions come with a lower credit margin, and then you also point out SEK 3.4 billion in renegotiations in the upcoming year, most of which will be in Q2, I believe, if I heard you correctly. Is it possible to sort of quantify the margin potential in renegotiations, i.e., in the SEK 3.5 billion or SEK 3.4 billion that's going to be renegotiated ahead?
I mean, of course, I mean, this is loan that we are refinancing. So of course, we will be aiming for a better margin. I mean, it's not—I mean, I would say a bit—I mean, it will, of course, affect the total margin of the group, but perhaps not that heavily. I mean, we have done some refinancing, but we are aiming for lower margins. It will give effects, but I mean, it's not like a big leap down.
If I may add to that, of course, we all remember the awful quarters during COVID. Of course, if you just look one year ago, margins have come down maybe 75 to even 100 basis points. Then again, interest rates have not moved down as quickly, and we are replacing some old interest rate hedges. The lower total average interest cost is continuing to go down. It will be by the lower credit margins, but of course, there will also be some offsets where previous positive hedges will run out. You have a mix.
Perfect. Understood. Finally, or my last question, also sort of a follow-up on acquisitions. You have done acquisitions in several markets or several countries. If we look ahead, is there any market that sort of stands out as better or worse, do you think?
There is a lot of opportunities. I usually repeat myself by saying that the U.K. is the most transactional market. There are more opportunities. It is a more liquid market. SONIA, the U.K. interest rate is 150-200 basis points higher. Of course, you need to find those accretive transactions. As you see, we have been acquiring last year in the U.K. for 8%-9%, whereas we maybe acquired for around 6.5%-7% in the Nordics. We are looking for everything that is accretive. Generally, the U.K. is more transaction basis, but it seems like both Germany and the Nordics have opened up quite a lot.
Perfect. Thank you very much. That is all from me.
Thank you.
Reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. No more questions at this time. I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Yeah. With that, we thank you all for your questions. We move on to the external market presentations, starting with Alex Robinson. Please go ahead, Alex.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much to the Pandox team for hosting me this morning. We'll start by taking a look at hotel demand. That's the number of rooms that we sell as a global hotel industry. You can see here, indexed back to 2019, we continue to sell more rooms than we did during the biggest disruption to our industry. Onto the next view, where you'll see that while we're not hitting those double-digit peaks while we were still somewhat in a recovery position, we're still growing overall anywhere from 2%-3%.
Some elements of seasonality present, but overall, we continue to sell more rooms as an industry. If we then translate that to a longer-term trend, and I think that's important when you talk about a lot of the disruption, there's no doubt that the implications of wider macroeconomic changes, which we'll touch upon later. Here we have U.K. gross domestic product and hotel demand. You can see it is quite an indicator of the trajectory of where we may be headed.
You think back to 2001, September 11th, on the aviation industry, global financial crisis, advent of Airbnb, COVID. You can see the overall resilience here of hotel demand. I think that's particularly important to take to heart during these times. If we then take a view of occupancy by region, you can see as demand rises, so does occupancy. I think what's important to look at, if you go back to January 2020 to present day, we've had as many as 350,000 new hotel rooms open across Europe.
While we're selling more rooms, we're also selling into a bigger pool of inventory, and occupancies continue to grow, which I think is very impressive indeed. If we then go ahead and turn to pricing, we'll be well familiar with double-digit gains we've experienced in recent years, now to more moderate gains year to date. As those on the call have stated, the first quarter is typically a quieter one, and we wait to get into the summer season before we see more material rise in pricing. If you do look to South America and North Africa here, you can see large double-digit increases.
Please know that inflation within those economies does weigh within those figures. It should be treated with a pinch of salt. If we then transition into Northeast, South, and West, or what we're calling the European regional divide, and we'll start by looking at that occupancies index to 2019, you can see the different groupings there. U.K. and Ireland already recovered, actually exceeding. Southern Europe, ever so close, really aided by international leisure travel.
Then a number of regions, notably DACH, CEE as well, which have perhaps been slower to initially recover due to not absorbing as much international demand. If you look to the axis horizontal there, you can see those are the regions that are growing the most year on year. Really starting to provide us with the growth while other regions have recovered. Looking then to compression nights, and I think this is really key.
If we were providing this presentation to you in 2018, 2019, this was what everyone and all were talking about. For many brands, operators looking at compression nights effectively when the market is sold out or very close to sold out. The good news is here, you can see the selection of key markets. There is a huge amount of nights. While we would love to have Championships every year or Taylor Swift every year, even without those, you can see we are still able to drive compression.
We may not be able to have quite the same level, but the markets are back. They are busy, and there are opportunities for revenue managers to maximize that profit and yield. Transitioning through to a capital and key city view there, you can see again, as we were marked during Q1, not the busiest time, but still occupancy growth, single digit. When you think about some of the supply new openings across many markets, that's quite impressive indeed.
When you take the likes of Budapest, for example, you have supply growth as much as 4%-5%, but still occupancy growth as much as 11%. When we change views there, looking at a collection of key cities across Central and Eastern Europe, I noted a moment ago that those markets and regions had been slightly slower to recover. Now, while Western Europe is perhaps showing single-digit growth, some of these key markets here are helping to see that growth overall.
Tbilisi, particularly impressive when you consider in recent months as much as 12% supply increase. Really impressive overall to contend with some of that new inventory coming to market. We'll then take a look at a regional overview of occupancy change by quarter, starting with the first quarter of 2024 into where we stand now at the end of Q1 2025. No surprise there is to Eastern Europe by far and away leading the charge in occupancy.
Again, frame that in the context of being slower to recover, where we know that Western, Northern, and Southern Europe had been quicker so. If we turn to average daily rate, standout growth for all relative to where we came from to 2019. There is no doubt that if you look at the list of nations in the front quadrant there, the Mediterranean is the standout. What's particularly impressive here is if you look to the horizontal axis, you can see that the year-over-year growth for many of those, if you take Greece, Spain, Portugal, still actually getting close to some double-digit figures overall.
The U.K. as well, notable as such, 6%, even if trading in London was expected for the first quarter. More on average daily rate as we head into one of the key themes, pardon me, that we see across the world as well, where we look at hotel performance by class. Simply put, the higher the hotel class, the higher the revenue per available room. I thought it was interesting some of the remarks earlier about airlines, the U.S. airlines in particular, on their recent earnings calls and what we can expect that to mean for transatlantic demand.
From the most recent earnings calls, they remarked that in the premium or the business cabins, they're still seeing growth, and it's in the main or the economy cabins where they're seeing challenges. That also reflects the trend that we're seeing across the world and Europe, exception where luxury and upscale hotels are seeing to take a guest that's not as exposed to the challenges in the economy, whereas economy and mid-scale are indeed more exposed to a questionary traveler.
If we then turn to 2023, it's important not to forget that economy was the quickest to recover overall during the pandemic, particularly with occupancy and really able to push ahead in terms of rate. That being said, if they get to the finish line quicker and they're running that marathon a second time out, that personal best gets harder to be achieved through some exceptional training. If we then go ahead to full year 2024, we'll know no doubt that luxury has pushed ahead there.
You can see that Europe, actually, when you compare it with the rest of the world, has been outperforming overall. We know that Q1, while perhaps single steady digit growth, but once we get into the summer, that's really where Europe pulls ahead from the rest of the world. If we then look at that performance by class, if you're talking about by day of week, it's clear to see for your weekday read corporate, weekend leisure, and then shoulder your Thursdays is that luxury is charging ahead across all of those stay patterns.
If you look at the growth composition of revenue per available room, it is very much a recipe that is weighted towards average daily rate. Occupancy planning is primarily led by average daily rate. That is true for all classes, you can see here for the full year 2024. Looking then, what we can see is the overall driver of growth, what it was for the period 2015 to 2019, and then to 2024. As much as things change, they also stay the same. You can see that rate is the primary driver of growth for periods and as well for classes overall.
Looking to end the section with a view on group ADRs. I think this is an interesting one when we think about what has been a headwind for us that has not fully recovered business as much as, say, 80% recovered, but still yet to close that final gap. You can see the importance of some of the events we talked about in terms of the Euros, Taylor Swift, the Olympics, just how important those big growth.
I do think the group could be a tailwind, though notwithstanding some of the challenges that we'll touch upon in a moment. As you can see onto the next slide there, it's very hard to open any newspaper, any news app. Myself guilty on the train this morning, trying to read through the FT. Almost everything you read is indeed about the tariffs in the U.S.
If we go ahead onto the next slide and alluded slightly in terms of the U.S. earnings calls for the major airlines, it is understandably so that U.S. outbound travel to Europe is at risk. We know how key that's been for us, for many markets, particularly for Transient. If you think about some of the record seat factors that airlines are operating within, they are saying that they do anticipate some growth this year, but actually now leveling off to perhaps flat, actually perhaps a slowdown in terms of the economy cabin, but premium travel still to go ahead.
Though, as we know, booking patterns are long window, still to take stock of what the full effects may be, but absolutely one dynamic as we move throughout the rest of the year. If we then take a look at the impact on the U.S. economy and as it relates to inflation expectations and what that may mean for Americans in terms of their sensitivity to spend, some portfolio for individual 401(k)s and so forth, anywhere from, say, 10%-15% affected from what they may have been. If people feel wealthier, they're indeed more inclined to spend.
One to watch for the U.S. travel. If some of those U.S. airline calls are anything to go by and premium travel is still taking root, that's confidence that we can take forward overall. Looking at a softening dollar, potentially the U.S. dollar has seen record highs, which has allowed those Americans to come over and feel as though they're having their dollar go further when they spend overall. If we look at that gap, you can still see not a huge off of those highs.
The situation is ever-changing. Indeed, in the next few weeks and days, it could become more stable, but absolutely an element to watch overall. We can see consumer sentiment likely lower the intent to travel. You can see some of that America First sentiment. When we look at the data that STR is tracking, most of the impact we've seen is for those markets near the Canadian border. We're not seeing as many Canadians move into the U.S. Also, markets like Las Vegas, where you have 25% of all international arrivals being Canadian, have had an impact. Florida, some of those snowbird markets.
Having those impacts more domestically and here to the right, those nations that have a higher share of U.S. international nights and those with flags where travel guidance has been issued overall, but still very much at an early stage, still remaining anonymous. While it is bearing up to some degree in the data, it is not jumping out to any large extent at this moment in time. If we close by looking at our forecasts, our forecasts here at STR every February, August, and November, our forecast analysts now getting together to put together the May event, still yet to be fully quantified.
You can see here for the aggregate forecast of cities there, occupancy expected to take over as we did expect in light of some of the macroeconomic news for ADR to get back to a more single-digit range of growth and occupancy pushing forward. Thank you ever so much for taking the time to join this morning, and look forward to passing over. Thank you.
Hi everyone. I'm Rasmus Kjellman, CEO of Benchmarking Alliance. In the next 10 minutes, I will talk you through the market data specifically for the Nordics and the Baltics. There will be a lot of data in the short period of time, so prepare for a high pace. Starting with just mentioning what Benchmarking Alliance is, we are the large supplier of daily hotel market data for the Nordics, and we are founded and the team here in Stockholm.
Starting with the Nordics and looking at 2024 as a whole, it was, as you can see in the blue digits here, a good year for almost all markets with an increase in all markets. The only exception here from the significant increases is the Icelandic market that has been affected by volcanic eruptions during several periods of last years. When we add Q1 numbers to this picture, we see the same kind of behavior and development. All markets developing, but the Icelandic market a bit slower.
If we focus on the Nordic capitals, we can see that Stockholm had a fantastic year last year. We had the Taylor Swift, we had the ECCO Congress, we had Bruce Springsteen, so a really strong development for the Stockholm market. Oslo was positively affected by evenly spread out conferences in months of June and July and also September. Copenhagen had positively affected by music competitions in Malmö, Eurovision Song Contest, where the rates went up for that weekend by 24%.
Also, Helsinki, good development with the NATO conference in June and Tall Ship Race in July. Reykjavik had several months of negative development, but ended on the positive side. Moving to the next slide, this is an illustration that shows the development of supply as index number from 2022. To sum up this picture, the supply in Helsinki has increased significantly during this period, while Stockholm and Oslo have had more moderate increases. During a period of time, there were several venues in Stockholm closed for renovation, so the inventory actually decreased during that period.
Moving to the next slide and looking into the details of the capitals, there are a lot of details in the graph, and we will not have time to go through all of them, but I will summarize it for you. In Stockholm, we see a slight increase of RevPAR driven by rates. In Copenhagen, we see an increase of RevPAR driven by occupancy. In Oslo, increase in RevPAR driven by both rates and occupancy. Helsinki, increase in RevPAR driven by occupancy and compensating for the weaker rates. The lower rates in Helsinki are supposedly driven by increased inventory during the last year.
In Reykjavik, no increase in RevPAR as increased rates were neutralized by lost occupancy. Tallinn, increase in RevPAR driven by occupancy and Riga, increase in RevPAR driven by both occupancy and rates. If we move to the next slide and see how the capitals develop, when we look at both the revenue per available room and also the total revenue per available room, we can see that both Stockholm and Copenhagen, the ancillary revenue increased significantly more than the RevPAR. While in Reykjavik, the total revenue is in negative growth as a result of the volcano eruptions affecting meeting and event business harder.
Looking into the segments in Stockholm, there are really no big shifts within Stockholm. Most notable is perhaps that the luxury segment is somewhat down. This is a segment that had been in strong development earlier, but now is slightly down. If we in the same way look at the different segments for Oslo, we can see a generally strong market in all segments. There are shifts in available rooms, but generally a strong market.
In the same way, looking at Copenhagen and the segments here, we can see that prices in luxury are significantly up and occupancy in budget is significantly down in both luxury and budget. We can see somewhat of a movement in the Copenhagen market to the middle segments here. If we look in the same way at the Helsinki market, there is a significant increase of new rooms in the luxury segment, but that has been well compensated in sales.
If we move into the details of Sweden and start by looking at different cities within Sweden for 2024, all these bubbles represent different local markets. We follow 36 different local markets within Sweden, and you can see the rates on the left axis and the occupancy on the bottom axis, and the circle indicates the RevPAR. There are, of course, a lot of differences in the markets. We won't have the time to analyze them all, but you can see Stockholm, Västervik, and Varberg as being real strong markets within Sweden.
If we move to the next slide, where we follow up on the development for the local market during Q1, we see a very strong development for Västervik. We see a strong development for Uppsala, where we had Sweden Live Music Conference in January. On the other hand, we see a negative development for Jönköping that last year had the Elmia Fair, and the two large Elmia Fair had two large exhibitions during Q1 last year that is not being in Q1 this year. In the same way, look into the Norwegian market and the local market within Norway.
We can see the bubbles in this graph showing a really strong development for Tromsø and, of course, also Oslo. Tromsø and Bodø, both benefiting from the Northern Lights tourism and the Midnight Sun tourism. If we in the same way look at the development for the different markets for Q1, we can see a very strong development for Trondheim that had the Ski World Championship in the end of February and beginning of March.
In the bottom, we can see Bodø that last year had the cultural capital opening weekend and also the Nordlandsk onferansen that is not being held this year. In the same way, looking into Denmark at the local markets, we perhaps, as expected, can see Copenhagen as a strong market, but we also can see Tórshavn with even higher rates.
Looking at the development in the top here, we have Aalborg, and in the bottom, we have Kolding. The last country to have a look at is Finland. We can see a very strong market in Rovaniemi and a weaker market in Espoo. When we look at the development for the local markets, we see that Espoo, even though it is a weak market, is in strong development during Q1. Last but not least, looking at the future bookings for the major capitals.
If we start by looking for on the books for Stockholm, we see a slight increase here within the Stockholm market, 0.8%. You have to take into account that last year was a very strong year for the Stockholm market. We had many concerts, including Taylor Swift. Yeah, slight increase here. We also see a negative effect of Easter effects affecting the on the books here.
Moving on to Oslo, we see a very strong development of the Oslo market, pretty much higher on the whole period, even though there is a negative Easter effect. There are festivals going on in Oslo, different rock festivals, this is the ISEE Conference, and so on. Looking at Copenhagen, we see a small decline in the Copenhagen on the books market. We can see positive effects for Robbie Williams in June and a couple of smaller conferences in July and the Copenhagen Half Marathon, but generally down a bit.
That's all for me. Thank you very much. Just reach out if I can be of any help, and let me hand over to the Pandox team and Anders.
Thank you, Alex and Rasmus, for your hotel market updates. Thank you all for participating in this call. We really appreciate your time and interest in Pandox. Our interim report for the second quarter this year will be published on the 11th of July. Thank you for your interest and good luck.