Figures released on the 11 December reveal that the value of hotel, leisure and sport construction contracts awarded in November reached its highest level in two years.Barbour ABI, which is a chosen provider of construction data to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Government, has published its latest Economic & Construction Market Review revealing that the value of hotel, leisure and sport construction contracts totalled more than £574 million in November, an 8.8 per cent increase on October and 34.3 per cent higher than November 2013.
The report also shows that the sector accounted for 10 per cent of the total value of all construction contracts UK-wide, with 40 per cent of these awarded in London.
Michael Dall, lead economist at Barbour ABI, commented: “The value of construction contracts awarded in the hotel, leisure and sport sector in November rose to its highest level since 2012, which is hugely encouraging for the wider industry.
“It’s not surprising that London was the main location of activity in the sector this month, with 40 per cent of the total value of all contracts awarded. This is largely due to the award of a £100 million contract to develop a five-star hotel at the site of the Great Scotland Yard building in Whitehall, as well as a contract to develop the Artotel Hotel in Hoxton worth £40 million.
“2013 was a strong year for planning activity in the hotel sector with a number of high value schemes reaching detail planning stage. This is now filtering through to contracts awarded, and so far in 2014 there have been a total of 210 projects containing hotels across the UK, worth a total of £1.4 billion.”
The Economic & Construction Market Review is a monthly report designed to give valuable insight into UK construction industry performance. It is compiled from Barbour ABI’s records of construction data for every UK planning application, and key indicators, such as the Office for National Statistics’ Construction New Orders data.
