Welcome to the Pandox Q2 presentation for 2025. During the questions and answers session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing the 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 very much. Welcome everyone to this presentation of Pandox's interim report for the second quarter and first half year 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 Henrik Karlsson, Business Development Manager at Benchmarking Alliance with us. Alex and Henrik will provide a hotel market update on Europe and Nordics respectively. As you know, STR and Benchmarking Alliance are both leading independent research firms. They are dedicated to the hotel market and the views they express are completely separate from Pandox's. We offer these presentations as a service to Pandox stakeholders. As always, Alex and Henrik's presentations will be held after we have completed our formal earnings presentation including the Q&A.
We start with Liia and Anneli's business update and financial highlights for the second quarter 2025, followed by the Q&A session. With that I hand over to Liia.
Thank you, Anders, and good morning and welcome everyone. The second quarter was all in all stable with growth in both business segments supported by acquisitions. Total revenues increased by 2%, net operating income increased by 3%, and cash earnings increased by 5%. Cash earnings per share decreased by 1%. Generally, demand remained stable while average daily rate declined slightly. The business segment leases had a stable performance with revenues, net operating income, and profitability in line with last year. Acquisitions contributed positively, including Pullman Cologne Hotel, which was taken over on April 1st, as well as the new lease for Numa Brussels Royal Galleries. Like-for-like, revenues and net operating income were unchanged in the business segment own operations. Both revenue and profit increased with contributions from acquisitions made in the U.K. in the second half of 2024. Demand was stable, but lower average daily rates affected RevPAR negatively.
Like-for-like, revenues and net operating income decreased by 3% and 4%, respectively, this quarter. We had a tough comparable quarter in 2024. We had both the UEFA European Championships in Germany and Taylor Swift's Eras Tour. This was extra visible in our own operations hotels in Berlin and Dortmund, which were host cities during Euro 2024. Moreover, we also had a slight negative Easter effect versus last year, as well as a one-off revenue of SEK 22 million in Q2 2024 relating to Köln Bonn Airport. All in all, tough comps. The business outlook for the coming quarter is, however, stable. End of quarter, our loan-to-value ratio was 46.7%, and we have large financial capacity for new acquisitions and investments in the existing portfolio. Unrealized changes in values for the whole portfolio amounted to SEK 180 million, and the weighted yield decreased by 3 basis points to 6.25%.
On June 3, Pandox and Eiendomsspar announced a possible offer for the Dalata Hotel Group. The Irish Takeover Rules restrict what we are permitted to communicate at this stage. The proposal, which has been rejected by Dalata's board of directors, essentially involves a cash offer of EUR 6.05 per ordinary share in Dalata, which values its company at around EUR 1.3 billion. On June 20th, Pandox acquired approximately 2.2 million shares in Dalata, equivalent to around 0.8% of the issued share capital, for a price of EUR 6.30 per share. By 5:00 P.M. Irish time on 15 July , the consortium must either 1. announce a binding intention to make a bid for Dalata in accordance with Article 2.7 in the Irish Takeover Rules or 2.
announce that it does not intend to make a bid for Dalata, whereby this announcement under Article 2.8 in the Takeover Rules will be considered as a statement of intent not to make an offer. Our business is to own, improve, and lease hotel properties to strong hotel operators under long-term revenue-based leases. We do this through three principal value drivers: property management, property development, and portfolio optimization. Our ultimate goal is value creation, which we achieve through distinct activities in our business segments, leases, and own operations. Leases build upon long-term revenue-based leases with skilled operators where we share risk and upside and have joint incentives to improve the hotel product. Our own operation is an important tool for acquiring, repositioning, and transforming hotels. The optionality is important for us.
We can sign a new lease, divest the property, or keep it in the segment as long as it's the best option from a value perspective. Here we have compounded annual growth rates for the markets we are currently active in. This is based on market data from STR over the period 2016 to 2025 year-to-date. Against them, we have also plotted the portfolio market value as of June 30. Obviously, our portfolio has changed quite a lot over this period, but it shows our current exposure to different markets against their historical growth patterns. As you can see, Norway has had the highest growth with 4.9% annual growth and Finland the lowest by 1.1%. Growth in our largest markets, the U.K., Germany, and Sweden, has ranged between 3.2% and 1.5%, and these growth numbers are not adjusted for the pandemic.
They are as is, the numbers on the map. On the left side are the rolling 12-month RevPAR in local currency. Just to give you a feeling for the current absolute differences between markets, here we would like to illustrate a few different yield spreads as an indication of our value creation over time. Starting from the bottom, we have the average cost of debt followed by the blended yield on our portfolio, both at the end of the period, that is, June 30th this year. The next two boxes are the average yield on investments. The first one is unadjusted for the 2020 drop during the pandemic, while the second one excludes it. The underlying assumptions are outlined on the right-hand side of the page.
The 10-year period is 2015 to 2025 for which we have aggregated investments net of divestments and the incremental increase in the net operating income. We have then divided the aggregate incremental increase in net operating income by the investments to derive an average yearly yield return over the period. It ranges from 7.4%- 11.7% depending on if you adjust for the year 2020 drop in net operating income during the pandemic. The yield spread ranged from already a strong healthy 240 basis points- 780 basis points this quarter. I want to highlight two examples of recent investments that represent our way of growth working. We show our targets, our actions, and the results achieved. The key levers are RevPAR, incremental net operating income, and return on investment. We start with Leonardo Hotel in beautiful Galway in the leases business segment.
Together with our partner Leonardo, we decided upon a full renovation of rooms with bathrooms and public spaces. The renovation, which was completed in 2024, well exceeded the targets with the rare increase of 27% instead of the target assumption of 13%, thus resulting in a return on investment of 22%. The total investment landed on EUR 4.2 million, of which Pandox's share was approximately EUR 2.7 million or approximately 64%, and the property market value uplift was 12%. Another example is Scandic Park in central Stockholm. Here we converted existing spaces into new hotel rooms, renovated existing rooms and public spaces, as well as we created a new meeting and F&B concept. After completing the project in two phases due to the pandemic, the results have been strong with a RevPAR increase of 23% and a 20% uplift in the property value.
The total investment amounted to SEK 38 million, of which Pandox's share was approximately SEK 20 million or 53%. In coming presentations we'll try to further explain our investment methodology with more cases. Here we have a breakdown of the performance for a selection of countries, regions, and cities versus 2024. We show average daily rate on the vertical axis and occupancy on the horizontal axis. Thus, Origo 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 year-to-date. RevPAR increased in the majority of our markets, mostly driven by increased occupancy, while average prices were more varied. In terms of RevPAR, the greatest relative improvements in the first six months took place in Nordic regional markets, with Norway as a strong leader.
Oslo, Copenhagen, and Hanover were strong city markets. However, several important markets for Pandox were slower in the period, most notably Brussels, Stockholm, and London. Alex Robinson from STR and Henrik Karlsson 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 163 hotel properties with more than 36,000 rooms in 11 countries and 90 cities, with a property market value of SEK 76 billion and an average yield of 6.25%. Please note that we have yet to formally finalize the acquisition of Elite Hotel Frost in Kiruna, which is expected to be completed in the third quarter, and also after quarter end we divested Quality Winn Göteborg for SEK 57 million. We are divided into two mutually supportive and reinforced business segments: Leases and Own Operations.
Leases, where we own and lease out our hotel properties, stands for 80% of our property market value. In our Own Operations, we transform and run hotels in properties we own. Own Operations makes up 20% of our property market value, and the focus of our portfolio is still upper mid-market hotels with mostly domestic demand, which is the backbone of the hotel market. Regardless of which phase the hotel market cycle is in, we also have one of the strongest networks of brands and partners in the hotel property industry, and this ensures efficient operations and revenue management, which maximize cash flow and property values and a continuous flow of business opportunities. Also, a relatively large part of the investments in Leases is shared with the tenant, which lowers our risk, and with that I hand over to Anneli Lindblom, our CFO.
Thank you Liia and good morning everyone. In the second quarter, group net operating income increased by 2% and group revenue increased by 2% and group net income increased by 3% driven by the acquisition and stable performance in the leased business segment. As Liia said, we had a tough comparable quarter in which both the football European Championship in Germany and the Taylor Swift tour took place. Own operations saw stable demand, possibly at lower average daily rates, mainly due to the strong comparable quarter which affected the like-for-like figures. We are expecting continuing stable growth and for comparison figures to gradually become less challenging. Cash earnings and profitable changes in value increased by 5% and 4% respectively. Cash earnings per share decreased by 1%. 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 the second quarter, currency was negatively measured on average rates which we use for the income statement items, but it was positive measured on end of period rates which we use for balance sheet items. In other words, the exact opposite compared to the first quarter. As you know, we have the main part of our hotel properties outside Sweden and denominated in foreign currencies. This explains the positive effect on property values and EPRA NRV compared with the first quarter's figures. On this slide, we show the change in the main valuation parameters for the total property portfolio year-to-date and please remember that investment properties are recognized at fair value according to IFRS.
Unrealized changes in value for operating properties are only reported for information purposes and are included in the EPRA NRV. For the first six months, the total unrealized changes in value were a + $194 million driven by lower yields. As I said earlier, changes in currency had a negative impact on balance sheet items for the period with a decline in property values of approximately -$2.3 billion in the period. In the quarter, we gained access to Hotel Pullman Cologne with a transaction value of EUR 66 million. The formal acquisition of Elite Hotel Frosting here now is expected to be completed during the third quarter. End of period the average valuation yield for investment properties decreased 4 basis points to 6.09% and for operating property it was 6.88%. The blended yield was 6.25%.
Here we have the average yield, the average interest on debt and a print of per share quarterly in the period. Growth in EPRA NAV was a + 4% 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 46.7%, which puts us firmly at the lower end of our policy range. The ICR on a rolling per month basis was 2.7 x on a sequential basis, and cash and credit facilities amounted to SEK 2.7 billion. On top of that, we have unencumbered assets of some SEK 2.3 billion, sort of as untapped reserve. During the quarter, the positive trend from last year continued with a constructive financing climate with lower credit margins.
In the second quarter, we refinanced loans of approximately SEK 3.9 billion, which makes it close to SEK 20 billion over the last 12 months. End of quarter sustainability-linked loans, including green loans, accounted for 46% of total outstanding loans. Looking ahead, we have SEK 2.3 billion of debt maturing within one year. We have strong and expanding bank relations across our markets and discussions on future financing and refinancing are ongoing and positive. We also note an increasing appetite among banks outside the Nordic regions. At the moment, 58% of the net debt is hedged, which is a lower level than in previous quarters. With that, I will hand back to Liia for some final remarks.
Thank you, Anneli. We are now enjoying a seasonally strong period for the hotel market. Consumers continue to prioritize travel and the initial concerns over tariffs seem to have calmed a bit. The hotel market continues to show resilience and it's supported by strong underlying structural growth drivers. The comparison figures are becoming less challenging and business on the books in our own operations is stable. The event calendar in the second half of 2025 is promising with, for example, Oasis in the U.K. and a well-filled trade fair calendar in Germany. As before, we expect a positive contribution from acquisitions and investments in the existing portfolio. We continue to have a solid financial position with significant capacity for new hotel properties and investment in the existing portfolio. We now move over to Q & A.
Operator.
We are now ready for questions, and please don't forget to hand the call back to us afterwards after our external speaker's presentation.
If you wish 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.
Good morning.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
Perfect.
I have a couple of questions. Starting off with the sort of intended bid on Dalata, could you give any details on the intended bidder consortium, Eiendomsspar, Pandox , i.e. what is the intended ownership split between Eiendomsspar and Pandox?
We are not able to actually comment anything on this process, but I'll promise you that we will comment at the latest Tuesday 5:00 P.M. Irish time, unfortunately.
Okay, that's clear. I understand. Moving on, a question on the outlook for RevPAR growth. Do you repeat the same guidance as you've done in the last quarters where you expect relatively stable RevPAR development of 0%- 4% in 2025, or do you see any different outlook?
Yes, basically. Absolutely. The second quarter is stronger than the first quarter, and we see the occupancy stable and positive, whereas the ADR is somewhat weaker in the destinations which have been sort of all-time high, like London and Edinburgh, for example. All in all, we are in line with our previous guidance.
Thank you. A question on like-for-like growth in your portfolio: it was 0% for the segment leases and down slightly for own operations. Comparing that to market data on RevPAR development, it shows positive RevPAR growth in the Nordics, Germany, and a bit more stable in the U.K. If we look into H2, do you expect that we will see positive like-for-like growth in Q3 and Q4, supported by the fact that we have seen overall RevPAR growth in your markets?
Yes.
Most of the growth will of course come from the acquisitions we have done and also some of the investments we have done. Remember like-for-like does not include where we do investments in our own operations and then lease it out. This is a strong sort of value contributor for us, value creation. The RevPAR outlook is sort of flattish for the second half. Occupancy is, as I said, increasing or stable. ADR is somewhat soft but still sort of in line with last year. We have easing comps because Q2 had both the European football, especially in June, but also slightly in July. You had Taylor Swift, you had Easter effect and some one-offs. We are facing easier comps, absolutely. To that, of course, add our investment as well as transformation and acquisitions.
Okay, thank you. A question on the average interest rate. Based on what you know today, do you see that the average interest rate could come down slightly over the next six months to 12 months owing to slightly lower bank margins and lower STIBOR, or do you have any swaps with very low levels that will mature and dampen that effect?
No, I would guess that the most effectively lower margins because we have ongoing discussion and it's a completely different kind of bank market at the moment. Also, as I said, we can also see that it's sort of a competition between outside Nordic banks. It's been the Nordic banks that were sort of the first ones to start to lower the margins. We can also see that in other banks now. It's a good climate to do refinancing.
Okay, thank you.
Final question from me, and that is about the yield in your portfolio. The valuation yield was down slightly. If we sort of guess on the outlook for yield changes, do you think that yield compression is likely in your portfolio over the next quarters based on what you see on the transaction market?
What we see on the transaction market, yes. Yields have been tightening, and we see small signs of actually value as valuating with lower yields. Take to that. Hopefully, interest rates coming down. There are all this sort of. We are optimistic that we will continue to see this, and it's supported by transactions. Our guess is the same as ours in this case. We are positive.
Yeah.
Okay, sounds good. Those were my questions. Thank you for the answers.
Thank you.
Thank you.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. There are no more phone questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions.
We don't have any written questions, so I would like the opportunity to move on and to hand over the call to our first guest.
Sorry to interrupt.
Anders, there is a question coming in from Andreas Tomb.
Okay,
we'll let that one through.
Just a minute. Sorry. Now, please go ahead.
Sorry. Anders, please go ahead.
Yeah,
hi, good morning.
Just a couple of questions. Firstly, can you maybe speak a little bit about what are you seeing in terms of cost inflation in your business, and how do you see that progressing in the latter part of this year?
What do we see? When it comes to cost, we see that of course only in our own operations mainly now, and they are up a bit, but basically stabilized with the fact that we worked quite a lot with both efficiency, digitalization, automation, etc. etc. It puts everybody up on the toes in order to sort of offset this. We see that basically being quite balanced.
Understood.
In terms of what's happening in the U.K., quite a lot of just increases on employment, you know, the cost of doing business going up, and there's a new budget probably coming with more tax increases as well. How do you see the U.K. compared to other regions in that respect?
It is no big drama from what we see in our other markets. Of course, this is part of all of our budget process and our processes when we look at our operations. We are trying to offset it by as much as possible. We don't see any dramatic squeezes anyway.
Okay, understood.
My second question was more on external growth and outside Dalata, I guess, how do you see the acquisition opportunity set at the moment? I guess, secondly, anything notable you would say in terms of how the market pricing is trending or the competition you're seeing for bidding?
It is very much as it has been in the last quarter. We see a lot more transactions out than last year, of course, and the quarter before. The turbulence and the uncertainty in the.
World.
also creates opportunities, especially as there may be less institutional capital who are active, more PE capital. It's always the most active markets are outside the Nordics. It's the U.K. as usual, where the largest portfolios are out. You mentioned Dalata, but there are also other portfolios, of course, so very much in line with what it looked like last quarter.
Okay, understood. Maybe a final question on slide five. You showed sort of economics in terms of the acquisitions you're doing and the redevelopments and comparing that against, I guess, the average cost of debt or the blended yield. How do you think about your cost of equity in that equation? Do you consider that as well, or are you looking at it more from the debt perspective?
From this point it's in a total investment perspective, and of course it ties in with our LTV policy intervals being between 45% and 60%. All in all, blended.
Understood.
Thank you.
Now I hand the conference back to the speakers.
Okay, let's make a new attempt to hand over to our first guest, Alex Robinson from STR, for a European hotel market update. After Alex, Henrik Karlsson from Benchmarking Alliance will follow. Please go ahead, Alex.
Good morning everyone and thank you very much to the Pandox team for hosting me this morning. We'll start by taking a look at some of the key themes that we've been tracking for 2025, starting with the divide in performance by regions. Looking at hotel class performance, one of the big questions in the year in the wake of geopolitical concerns in terms of American travel, what can we expect in terms of summer 2025? Knowing as many mentioned on the call, that last year was a record summer. What can we get a sense of looking forward? If we start by looking at global demand, that's the number of rooms we're selling as an industry on a global scale.
The good news is that we continue to sell more rooms, not to the double digit levels that we saw when we were still in the latter stages of recovery, but demand remains robust for the global hotel industry. That means if we then turn to look at occupancy, if we're selling more rooms, occupancy continues to rise. You may look at Europe and say single digit percentage growth, but that's particularly impressive when you go back to January 2020 and think that there have been as many as 400,000 hotel rooms that have opened since then, 100,000 hotel rooms opening in 2021, almost 90,000 in 2022. We continue to sell into a much bigger pool of rooms. That's testament to the overall strength of demand. Occupancy continues to rise. If we then look at pricing, we can see more moderate in terms of ADR growth.
Your eyes may be drawn to Northern Africa, South America, large double digit gains there. Please do note that inflation weighs within those figures. If you then look to Asia, excluding mainland China, around 6% growth, they're still in the latter stages of recovery themselves. Whereas in Europe, 3% to growth to date. We're yet to get into the summer period, which we know can be key for overall rate growth. If we then transition to look at China, Europe and the U.S. here we're looking at RevPAR for a rolling three month period. What you can clearly see Europe in the blue is that July, August, the importance of the summer in 2024. If you then look at this year, you can see we're at an inflection point starting in April and May, which again points to the importance of the leisure summer for Europe as a region.
Transitioning to our next slide, we'll tackle our first theme which is the divide in performance. For those of you keeping up with broader performance, you know that it is very much led by the Mediterranean, U.K., and Ireland. You can see that remains the case here overall in terms of occupancy relative to 2019, with both U.K. and Ireland fully recovered there for those reasons that have been lagging there. If you look at the Benelux, for example, France, 4% or 5% year-on-year growth as you see towards the bottom there. Those regions that haven't made the full recovery have the largest overall year-on-year gains. If we then take a look at a wider map view, looking at key cities and key destinations, you can see more moderate occupancy gains.
If you've already recovered to pre-pandemic levels and you've contended with the large number of openings that we spoke about earlier, you can see more modest gains that you would have expected to see overall. There are some notable gains you can see in Budapest, with ever so strong demand as we're seeing also in the Baltics, which have shown some strong recovery numbers overall. If you look at Europe, there is more moderate growth year-to-date on a city and key destination level. Transitioning then to the lens of average daily rate, it is one that continues to re-emphasize the theme of the Mediterranean, the pricing power of those leisure destinations. Just look at the likes of Greece, Spain, and Portugal. Not only are they in ever so strong terms relative to 2019, they're also continuing to grow year-on-year.
If you look to the more meager growth that we see in Germany, the good news is that even after a record year last year, we're still seeing some moderate gains at around 3% in all regions, as you can see there, with the exception of France. Given how important the Olympics was last year, all regions have positive growth today. Transitioning, we can see an illustration again on a map view of the divide between north and south. It is very much clear to see if we look to the northern destinations, there is more muted growth. As you go south in Europe, you can see more pricing power there. When you think that there are some leisure destinations that are not on this map, that's where you also continue to really see the pricing power as we head into summer.
Transitioning then into the theme of luxury, one of the big buzzwords that you hear originating from the U.S. and globally is the bifurcation where luxury hotels lead and economy hotels face a bit more of a challenge. What you'll see on this next view is relative change to 2019, but also 2025 year-to-date. We know that luxury would stand out for rate growth relative to 2019, and that continues to be the case here in 2025, albeit the values on the y-axis in 2025, as you'd expect, are more reasonable than double digit. Good news, as you can see, is that economy, at least on a global level, is also making gains there. Again, that hypothesis remains true, which is luxury and upper upscale lifestyle hotels continuing to push onwards. If we then look at our next view, we looked at global on the last slide.
Now we're looking at Europe. You can see more challenging trading for economy there, occupancy negative to the year, fostering overall negative RevPAR growth. The higher the hotel class, the higher the revenue per available room growth, as you see for luxury and upper upscale there, both the standout and real standout performance. From luxury onto the next view, we can look at the U.K., which I know some of you on the call have questions in terms of trading. While it has had a tougher start to the year, as you can see across all hotel classes, luxury and upper upscale are the ones that have been able to yield occupancy. I think that's actually even more so impressive in luxury, particularly when you look to London, which has had quite a robust pipeline of openings overall. This reflects a global trend.
Again, what we're seeing is that luxury and upper upscale hotels are stronger in terms of trading, while economy hotels are a bit more challenged to date. Though I do think it's worth noting that economy hotels were the first to recover relative to 2019, so perhaps somewhat victims of an early recovery. Also, as we'd understandably know, more exposed to the wider macroeconomic conditions, those guesting and those hotels are more exposed to wider inflation. If we transition then to our next theme, can we count on the Americans to continue coming for travel? One of the big questions that we didn't have as much in our minds in 2024, but a lot to start the year in 2025 and policy that would potentially influence that. If we then transition here, you can see U.S.
departures to Europe, percentage change year-over-year, and then for the month just gone year-to-date. You can see the good news is overall that if we look year-to-date, still more U.S. departures to Europe, and keep in mind we are already at record levels, outpacing that at 2019. The story broadly there is positive even with all of the uncertainty, both economically and politically, Americans still looking to travel to Europe for the summer 2025. That's also bolstered by transatlantic routes offering record seat capacity from an airline perspective. One of the interesting notes from the airlines is they see strong, strong growth at the front of the cabin, which again re-emphasizes that theme of luxury hotels. Business class traveler likely staying in a luxury hotel continues to maintain a robust segment.
If we then take a look at the dollar in terms of pricing power, what it means for U.S. travelers, we know it's depreciating. We can see the rate increases relative in dollars higher than what we'd see overall. You can still not necessarily reflect it in the numbers because if we look at the next slide, U.S. travel to London in this example still continuing to forge ahead, down for the month just gone, but still ahead year-to-date. If we then take a look forward and what we can anticipate for the future, we know and mentioned on the call that the summer 2025 has a lot to live up to. We can see number of compression nights here overall year-to-date.
The good news is even without some of those really key one-off events, you talk about the Euros which we wait to return in 2028, or Taylor Swift, the likes of Adele and Munich, we still are having situations where markets are selling out, revenue managers able to yield effectively. If we then take a look at our forecast quarterly here, there is no doubt even with the number of compression nights we've seen in 2025, we know we can't replace the likes of the Olympics, Eras Tour and others. We do expect that pricing power in the third quarter to be a tough comp, as we've noted before. As we head into Q4 and Q1 into 2026, we can see strong robust growth in terms of rate and then a more reasonable, solid, but unspectacular level of growth as we head into Q2 and Q3 of 2026.
Onto the next slide, we see here business on the books. While broadly speaking you can see a few outliers there in the likes of Vienna, Barcelona, which perhaps have more swings, business on the books is broadly equal to last year, if not with some ever so slight declines, which you may say business on the books being flat. When you think about what we're comping over, actually that in itself is quite encouraging. Nothing to shout about, but also something to be steadfast and appreciate as well. Onto our next view. I think it's really important to look at the long-term view. Yes, maybe a more challenging year in terms of comping over events, but look at the long-term overall strength of demand. You can see here huge levels of demand growth.
These are the number of rooms that are being sold in each of these markets across Europe and it really is a testament to the strength and the desire for people to come and stay in our industry. If we go to the next slide, if we look at supply, it is contending with huge levels of supply. As guests are traveling in record numbers, investors are investing capital. We're still seeing growth even with robust demand, having to contend with these levels of supply. Into our next view here, the usual suspects in terms of pipeline and development, not much of an order change overall in terms of respective nations that have rooms in development. Into our next view, you'll see here I spoke about huge levels of openings, which you can see in 2021 and 2022.
Given the broader financing environment, we see that there will be more muted openings in the year ahead. Here we'll wrap up with our key European cities forecast. There you can see the range of growth, for example, 8% in Budapest, which we mentioned, robust demand all the way through to Hamburg. Again, comping over some events as well as increased supply increases. To round out there, in the final slide, we can see the divide in European performance remains, particularly led by the Mediterranean. Luxury continues to set the pace. The good news is that the U.S. traveler is still here for the summer 2025. Fewer openings could be a tailwind. While occupancy is flat on the books to last year, summer rate gains will be limited. The overall long-term trend for the industry is positive. Thank you very much and look forward to speaking later. Thank you.
Thank you, Alex. My name is Henrik and I'm from Benchmarking Alliance. Let's head to the Nordic markets a bit and look at the latest numbers and trends. If we move on to the first slide very quickly, who are we? We are the largest supplier of benchmarking and market data in the Nordic countries. We always strive for the best possible coverage in all the markets we work in. We're based in Stockholm, Sweden, and we offer benchmarking and market data not only for hotel KPIs but also for meeting and conference revenue as well as spa and campaign. Let's look at the Nordics in general. If we look at the countrywide averages in the Nordics and the Baltics and we look at RevPAR development, the blue box will show you the development in total of 2024. The orange boxes will show you so far 2025 Q1 and Q2.
We can see that the positive trend from last year continues. We see that in all the countries the RevPAR development is positive, also the first half of 2025. Iceland, who had a more modest increase last year mainly because of the volcano eruptions that took place there several times, is now increasing its RevPAR again at a higher pace. We won't be focusing so much on the Baltics now, but we see also really good numbers there too after the years of lost Russian demand and other negative effects from the war. In Ukraine, we can now see that demand is coming back to the Baltics again. Moving to the next slide, we take a closer look at the capitals in our area.
Obviously, 2024 was a fantastic year for, first of all, Stockholm, the Taylor Swift effect that hit there, the ECCO Congress in the beginning of the year, Bruce Springsteen concerts, etc. In Oslo, we also had a lot of conferences and events affecting the market last year. However, if we go back to Stockholm and look at the start of this year, we obviously see a small decrease there. That is mainly because of the Taylor Swift effect last year and the ECCO Congress in the beginning of the year that wasn't replaced with any similar event this year. However, in Oslo we see the other way around. New Shipping conference, a large maritime industry conference that took place this year, had a very positive effect on the RevPAR as well as some smaller events as well taking place this spring in Copenhagen.
The conference Endo-ERN, WindEurope and the Copenhagen Rock Festival and Robbie Williams on the same weekend actually brought up prices to new record levels in ADR in Copenhagen. Helsinki as well. May and June especially have been really good congress months there. If we just mention Reykjavik in Iceland, it's interesting to see that it's actually the rest of Iceland that is increasing more than Reykjavik. Most probably it's also because it was the countryside hotels in Iceland that were affected mostly by the volcano eruptions last year. This swinging back of the RevPAR is higher for them.
Moving to the next slide, we see if we just look very quickly at the supply change in the Nordic capitals, we can just see that for some of the capitals in the Nordic areas, the supply of rooms has increased close to 15%- 20% during the past three to four years, especially Copenhagen, Helsinki, and Reykjavik. However, if we look at the last 12 months, we can see that it's quite stable. One change we see now is that some of the hotels that closed in Stockholm for a long time for renovations, such as Scandic, Sarda, CAI, and Villa Foresta, Royal Park, now opening soon again, had an effect on the supply as well. Moving on to the next slide, the capitals' development more in detail Q1 and Q2 2025, we can see that available rooms, sold rooms, occupancy, ADR, and RevPAR in each city.
In Stockholm, the lack of congresses and concerts this year mainly had an effect on rates, not so much demand. In Copenhagen, we see an increase mostly through demand. Oslo has a really nice development in both rates and demand. Helsinki, however, struggles to get prices up even if demand is there. Reykjavik had some new supply coming in last year but is anyway showing increase in both demand and price. Also, Tallinn and Riga show really good developments all over the place. In the next slide, I have added also TRevPAR just to see the combination of RevPAR and TRevPAR, and TRevPAR is total revenue per available room. In this number, we also take ancillary revenue into consideration. Ancillary revenue has increased RevPAR in both Stockholm and Copenhagen, whereas in Oslo being more stable and in Helsinki it has actually decreased, holding back the development.
It's interesting to look at the total revenue as well as other revenue in the hotels, such as food, beverage, meeting and events departments, etc. Don't necessarily follow the rooms department development, and this is why we also collect this data. Moving on to the segments, we can see that in Stockholm it has been a pretty stable development all over. However, some decrease in occupancy in the luxury segment even though rates continue to increase. In the budget segment, we actually see the other way around. Occupancy-wise, it's the midscale and the budget segments who are leading. Moving on to offload, it's a really positive trend in all the segments here. Not much to say about it. We can see both demand and price increase in all the segments. Moving on to Copenhagen, somewhat the same trend as in Stockholm.
Luxury segment is starting to slow down in demand, but rates are still increasing. However, luxury segment is almost driving the price increases on its own, only smaller changes in the middle segments. The reason for the drop in the budget segment is that we actually have some properties that stopped reporting. On the actual numbers, average rooms and sold rooms, we see a decrease. However, the KPIs still show the average of the reporting venues, and there we see very small changes. Moving on to Helsinki and last among the Nordic capitals, the Hotel Maria and NH Hotel Collection. New luxury properties in Helsinki adding more supply to the luxury segment. However, this capacity has been utilized very well. As you can see, sold rooms is increasing even more, bringing up the occupancy, maybe at the cost of a slightly lower rate, but in general it looks really good.
In the other segments, there are only small changes. Looking into the countries a little bit more in detail and starting with Sweden, and we look at the Swedish cities. In Sweden, we cover 36 markets including all the regional cities as well. We don't have time now to go through all these, of course, but in this graph just to show you a little bit how they are placed. The further up on this graph they are, that means a higher ADR, and the further to the right, a higher occupancy. Looking at Sweden so far this year, we can see that the market with the highest RevPAR at the moment is Visby. It's a very small market on the island of Gotland, very leisure driven in the summer.
There is also a politics event every summer that brings a lot of demand and a lot of RevPAR to Visby, which just took place in the end of June. That is why we see Visby so high up on this. A bit surprisingly, we can see that Stockholm is not on top. If we look at this same picture at the end of the year, we will see a different picture definitely. If we move on to the next slide, we can also see the change from last year for the Swedish cities. On top here, we see the small city of Västervik, also a mainly leisure destination. However, they have had some company projects taking place in Västervik lately, which is bringing up the RevPAR there, as well as a very active destination company working in Västervik who is marketing the area very well.
Further, we see a nice development in a hotel in Uppsala and Kir una. In Uppsala, for example, there was a Sweden Live music conference.
January.
Affecting the RevPAR positively. If we look on the bottom of this page and the markets that are decreasing right now, we can see, for example, Jönköping, Växjö, and Kalmar. Jönköping, the exhibition center in Jönköping, had two large exhibitions last year, Q1 Elmia Solar and Custom Motor Show, and these were not replaced by anything large this year. That's the reason for the decrease there. Obviously, we all know what's happening in Skellefteå. The effects from the Northvolt battery factory that closed down will obviously show on the hotel market as well. Moving on to Norway, same thing here. We see the Norwegian cities on this graph here, and Tromsø obviously is doing really, really well here. High RevPAR, the highest RevPAR in Norway. Really good at the Aurora tourism and marketing themselves as the place to go to, so that's really interesting to see.
Oslo obviously is the second largest market RevPAR-wise in Norway. Moving on to the changes in Norway, Trondheim on top, and that is because of the Ski World Championships end of February that boosted the market there. Of course, Tromsø, we see that increasing still. If we look at the decrease on the bottom, we see Bodø, and the reason is that last year was the culture capital of Europe, Bodø, and also a large conference, Nordland Conference, last year in March, and this was not replaced this year. Moving on to Denmark, same picture in Denmark, smaller country, fewer markets, but nevertheless really interesting to look at. Not so surprisingly, Copenhagen is the largest market RevPAR-wise in Denmark. However, we also have now Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands, which is quite interesting to see. Slightly lower RevPAR, but I would say pretty high rates.
Even higher rates in Faroe Islands than in Copenhagen. However, the occupancy is a bit lower. This is something that we see in these typical summer destinations where the main part of the occupancy is sold in the summertime, where the prices are high, which give them high ADR. If we look on a longer period, for example in this case six months, the occupancy is lower. Looking at Denmark and changes so far this year, we see that almost all markets are increasing in Denmark, so that's really nice to see. Vejle is a very, very small market, and they had a lot of out-of-order rooms last year due to renovations, and they are now back in the market. That's the reason for the increase there. Last but not least, Finland, and if we look at the Finnish series, Rovaniemi is really sticking out here.
The Arctic tourism, Santa Claus bringing people from all over the world to Rovaniemi, who also had now increased number of direct flights bringing people up there. Helsinki is actually far behind, being the capital of Finland, but of course it's also a larger market, more rooms, etc. Looking at the change in Finland.
It's.
Rovaniemi together with the largest cities in Finland, Helsinki, Espoo, and Turku, are increasing. The west coast cities, Vantaa and Pori, are experiencing worse times there right now, at least during the first two quarters of 2025. Okay. Lastly, just look at the future and the on the books. We collect on the books for the next 365 days. Starting with Stockholm, we see a positive trend. Actually, the ECCO Congress is coming back again next year. That's what we see there in 2026. Also, a large congress in June next year. ECCO Hematology Congress is coming back. Otherwise, the trend is very similar to last year. However, we see a small increase in general in August, September, and also October, November. Looking at Oslo, very similar trend to last year.
However, we see that the summer and the beginning of the fall, the on the books is slightly higher than last year. Also, some events starting to generate demand in the beginning of 2026. Looking at Copenhagen, a couple of smaller conferences in July and also the Copenhagen Half Marathon in September really sticks out here, but in general also slightly higher on the books compared to last year. Also, if we look at Helsinki, a really nice August and September, we are actually up 30% in August and September versus last year. The main event affecting the on the books is currently the Helsinki Metal Music Festival in August. That concludes my presentation for today. You're welcome to contact me if you have any questions or if you're interested in more detailed information about hotel market data in the Nordics. Thank you very much.
I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Thank you Alex and Henrik for your hotel market updates, and thank you all for participating in this call. We really appreciate your time and interest in Pandox. Our interim report for the third quarter will be published on 23rd of October . We wish you all a fantastic summer. Don't forget to stay at our hotels when you are on the road. Goodbye everyone.