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Inclement weather has been a staple of television news in recent weeks. The city of Chicago, USA, was buried beneath 20 inches of snow yesterday, while Queensland, Australia, was torn apart by Cyclone Yasi, believed to be the strongest storm ever to hit the state before it made landfall yesterday.

Closer to home, the UK suffered through several weeks of snow and freezing temperatures during December, with many businesses forced to close their doors to customers and employees alike. However, a consultancy firm, PKF, has revealed that last year’s snowstorm was not a total loss for British business.

Hotels in the area surrounding Gatwick and Heathrow airports actually benefitted from the plague of flight cancellations and delays that followed the first snowfall, posting an increased room uptake rate, as stranded passengers hunted down cheap accommodation.

London Heathrow Airport, which recently spent half a million pounds on new snow-clearing equipment, only to end up closed anyway, helped local hotels achieve a 10.6% boost in room occupancy, up to 79.5% overall. Hotels near Gatwick Airport also recorded higher occupancy rates for December 2010, up 15.5% to 73.6%. The popularity of rooms caused a hike in prices. Rates increased to £69.19 per night at Gatwick, and £75.97 at Heathrow, an average rise of around 14%.

The situation in London contrasted with that in Scotland, where occupancy at Edinburgh Airport hotels slumped to 59.2%. In comparison, accommodation near the Scottish hub managed to fill 67.8% of their rooms during December 2009. Robert Barnard, a partner of PKF, blamed “people’s inability to visit the city” for the disappointing figures at Edinburgh. The airport was closed eight times in two months due to snowy conditions.

In "the regions," a term that presumably alludes to East Midlands, Manchester, Liverpool, and the other airports outside London, occupancy was down by 2.5%, to 57.4%. “December proved that heavy snowfall can be both good and bad for hoteliers,” explained Robert Barnard.