British hotelier Millennium & Copthorne first-quarter rooms revenue falls

(Reuters) - Britain's Millennium & Copthorne Hotels (M&C) (MLC.L) said group revenue per room for the first quarter fell 3.1 percent, blaming weakness in the hotel markets in London and Europe.

UK room demand has been hurt by a string of militant attacks over the last two years and as traditional hotel operators face competition from holiday home rental start-ups like Airbnb.

Europe revenue per available room (RevPAR) - a key hotel industry metric - dropped 4.2 percent in the quarter, while London RevPAR sank 9.4 percent, the company said.

The operator of the Millennium, Grand Millennium, Copthorne and Kingsgate hotels said London performance was affected by partial closure of the Millennium Hotel London Mayfair for refurbishment.

However, excluding the impact of the closure, RevPAR for London was still down 3.1 percent.

The hotelier said group RevPAR in the quarter fell to 68.5 million pounds ($92.9 million) from 70.7 million pounds.

M&C was the target of an unsuccessful 2-billion-pound buyout offer last year by its chairman and Singaporean billionaire, Kwek Leng Beng.

In January, Kwek's City Developments Ltd, M&C's majority investor, failed to secure 50 percent threshold acceptances for its 2-billion-pound offer after minority shareholders blocked the acquisition.

London-listed hotel group InterContinental Hotels (IHG.L) also posted a 3 percent drop in London RevPAR for its first quarter on Friday.

($1 = 0.7372 pounds)

(Reporting by Rahul B in Bengaluru; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)