What percentage of hotel rooms in Britain are occupied by migrants?

Flagged up

The Finnish air force announced that it is to remove the swastika from its flag (which was designed in 1918) to avoid awkward encounters with foreign dignitaries. Some other unlikely places you can – or could – see a swastika without any links to Nazism:

– Christian catacombs in Rome.

– Above the doorway to Chelmsford town hall (built 1928-39).

– Above a doorway at the Foreign Office.

– On a plaque at India House.

– On the floor at Upminster Bridge Tube station (opened early 1930s).

– On the floor at the former NatWest branch in Derby Street, Bolton.

– On early editions by Rudyard Kipling.

A fair shake

An earthquake measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale struck Afghanistan. Which countries were struck by the most earthquakes (above 4.0) in the years 2020-24?

Indonesia 10,699

Mexico 9,577

Japan 5,660

Philippines 5,072

Chile 4,681

Guatemala 3,240

Source: US Geological Service/European Mediterranean Seismological Centre

Room for doubt

What percentage of hotel rooms in Britain are occupied by migrants?

In March 2025 – the latest figures available – there were 32,345 asylum seekers housed in hotels, down from a peak of 56,042 in the third quarter of 2023.

– There is no easily available data on the number of beds in UK hotels, as most statistics tend to count rooms rather than beds. The largest ten hotel chains have 208,000 rooms between them, with Premier Inn by far the largest at 77,000. However, an ONS survey in 2011 did count the number of ‘bed places’ in ‘hotels and similar establishments’ and came up with a figure of 1.41m. So on a rough estimate, asylum seekers would appear to be occupying around 2% of beds in UK hotels.