Exclusive:International bookers 'fall off their chairs' at Edinburgh hotel costs, jazz festival head says
Concerns as Edinburgh hotels switch to dynamic pricing ahead of busy festival season
International bookers "fall off their chairs" when they hear the cost of a hotel room in Edinburgh, the head of the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival has claimed.
Executive producer Fiona Alexander said hotel costs in the capital have more than doubled since the pandemic, while group booking deals agreed with hoteliers in previous years have been scrapped as accommodation providers opt to cash in on dynamic pricing - when prices fluctuate according to demand.
Ms Alexander said international music agencies or government-backed cultural institutes who host the Spark concert series at the festival - paying the cost of hotels and flights for their artists - are astounded at the cost of a summertime room in Edinburgh, which she says is now comparable with central London.
This year’s festival is hosting performers from the Netherlands supported by Performing Arts Fund NL, while last year, musicians from Luxembourg were backed by government agency Kultur lx – Arts Council Luxembourg.
She said: “Quite a lot of our visiting programme is funded by international music agencies or governments and when we tell them what the [hotel] prices are, they sort of fall off their chairs.
“You’re advising them what the costs are going to be and you've got to put in something like £275 pounds a night for a hotel room and they're just going, ‘wow’.
“When you're comparing that with other places that they could potentially invest, where the hotel prices are much cheaper, it’s difficult.”
Most other hotel costs for individual artists are paid by the festival directly.
Ms Alexander said: “It also means when we're trying to book an artist and we're trying to bid against them going to Paris or Berlin, we can offer slightly less [in fees] because of the hotel cost hit. People want to come to Edinburgh, so they're willing to take that hit. But how long can that go on? There will be a ceiling.”
She added: ”As long as the festival can maintain its reputation as being such an exciting place to be, it's kind of OK. But it teeters on the brink.”
She said when major concerts at Murrayfield Arena clash with the festival’s dates, price “go through the roof”, with even a basic hotel room rocketing to up to £1,000 a night.
“The other thing that's changed for us is that we used to be able to do deals with the bosses of local hotels, but now everything's on dynamic pricing,” she said. “We used to call up hotel X and say, ‘the festival will need 30 rooms a night’ and they would give us a rate, whereas now we're just pitching with everybody else.”
She said it was difficult to know when to book hotels to try and save costs.
Ms Alexander said: “Our auditors last year were saying, ‘Why are you spending so much money on next year's festival?’ We told them we had to buy hotel rooms in advance. In the past we'd have had a deal with a hotel and we'd have just paid them the week before the festival.”
Leon Thompson, executive director of UKHospitality Scotland said: "Edinburgh is an extremely popular city, attracting visitors from across the world. The city's accommodation businesses provide a variety of options for visitors and this is reflected in the prices.
“With further hotels set to open in the city, including additional lower cost options, the city can continue to offer rates to suit different budgets.”
Edinburgh’s visitor levy applies from 24 July, three days before the end of the jazz festival, adding an extra five per cent charge to an overnight stay.
Mr Thompson added: "The festivals in Edinburgh have always supported the introduction of this tax and the Jazz and Blues Festival's Mardi Gras will benefit from additional funding, taken directly from the levy. The downside is that accommodation costs for performers and visitors will increase."
The Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival begins on Friday.
Comments
Want to join the conversation? Please or to comment on this article.