The accommodation industry in the United Kingdom is split by serviced accommodation and non-serviced accommodation. Serviced accommodation refers to short stay accommodation where an overnight service is provided, such as meals and housekeeping. Typically, serviced accommodation types include hotels, guesthouses and bed and breakfast accommodation (B&B). Non-serviced accommodation does not provide additional services and generally covers self-catering premises, such as rented apartments, youth hostels, holiday parks, campsites and motorhomes.
In the UK, domestic tourists staying in paid accommodation are more likely to use a form of serviced accommodation than non-serviced. The share of domestic nights spent in hotels, guesthouses and B&Bs however is somewhat lower than the share of domestic trips using such establishments. This could suggest that serviced accommodation is more commonly used for short trips, while long stays are more likely to be spent in self catered accommodation.
Of the different types, room occupancy in serviced accommodation is comparatively lower for bed and breakfast establishments, despite a slow increase in B&B occupancy rates. Use among international visitors had been releatively low, but picked up around 2015, when the figures for inbound arrivals using B&B accommodation presented a sharper increase. In terms of UK consumers, Statista’s 2017 survey results showed that the proportion of respondents who had ever booked B&B accommodation when traveling was lower among 18 to 29-year-olds than older generations.
