London’s luxury hoteliers lose sleep over fall in Middle East visitors

Stay informed with free updates

Simply sign up to the Travel & leisure industry myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.

High-end London hotels are struggling to sell their most expensive rooms amid a slowdown in bookings from big-spending Middle Eastern customers, as the conflict in Iran reverberates through the luxury market.

At The Langham in the heart of the capital’s West End, where a suite can cost nearly £6,000 a night, managing director Stefan Soennichsen said business had “gone down dramatically” since the war erupted two months ago.

Stuart Procter, chief executive of The Beaumont Mayfair in London’s most upscale neighbourhood, said the industry was enduring a “tough time”. The price of five-star accommodation in the city for dates between March and July is down 13 per cent on the same period last year, according to data tracker Lighthouse Intelligence.

At a meeting last week of managers from some of London’s best-known establishments, including Claridge’s and The Connaught, hoteliers’ discussions included what Procter called the “phenomenal” impact of the war, which has taken a heavy toll on Gulf economies such as the United Arab Emirates and disrupted flights to and from the region.

“A lot of my colleagues, and ourselves, rely on [visitors from] the UAE coming into town,” Procter said.

Paul Charles, a luxury travel consultant, said the drop in the number of Middle Eastern customers “was starting to rip into the business model of the finest hotels”.

Even the best establishments would face pressure to lower their rates the longer the war and fragile ceasefire dragged on, particularly for accommodation priced above £1,000 a night, he predicted.

The industry’s troubles follow a period of record performance for luxury hotels, which in London fed through to a 9 per cent rise in prices in January and February compared with the same period in 2025.

“We were flying,” said Procter. “We were all congratulating ourselves on how successful we were.”

The crisis caused by the Iran war has left hoteliers scrambling to find new wealthy customers to fill their rooms.

The Biltmore Mayfair, where Gulf guests have historically provided about four-fifths of revenues, had been “proactively diversifying focus across other key markets, including Europe and the US” to secure bookings, said managing director Vella Ramaswamy.

The Evolv Collection’s South Place Hotel in the City, the capital’s financial district, has made a “pivot to have more of a focus on the domestic market,” according to chief executive Martin Williams, after losing about £50,000 of bookings from travellers caught up in the UAE disruption. 

Soennichsen said The Langham had taken no bookings from the Middle East around the Eid festivities held at the end of March, typically a busy period for high-spending Gulf visitors to London, and had fielded very few calls for next month’s Eid holiday.

It is not just high-end hotels that are suffering.

Luxury retail groups LVMH, Kering and Hermès all said in recent earnings updates that the war had dented sales in the Middle East. Hopes for an improvement were “firmly upended by the conflict”, Deutsche Bank analyst Adam Cochrane said in a note.

LVMH chief Bernard Arnault told the company’s annual meeting this week that the luxury recovery was dependent on a swift end to the war, which he warned could spiral into a “global catastrophe”.

Procter insisted London’s cohort of luxury hoteliers was “a tough bunch” that could withstand a temporary slowdown, although they would “have to be frugal” while the crisis continued.

Soennichsen stressed that his peers had seen out previous storms, including the Covid-19 pandemic, while admitting uncertainty about when the conflict might end was a “big test” for the industry.

Some were optimistic that once they had navigated this slump, London’s reputation as a luxury travel destination could be enhanced, particularly if the war delivered a more lasting blow to Gulf destinations such as Dubai or Abu Dhabi.

“There’s the silver lining that . . . London is seen as a safe place,” Williams said. “Potentially people that were travelling to the Middle East will come here instead.”