Hospitality Industry Trends - Development

Mecca currently has 12 new luxury hotels with a total number of more than 6,000 rooms in the hotel construction and development pipeline.

International hotel investors have clearly set their eyes on Asia and the Middle East - 770 hotels currently arise between Dubai and Shanghai. For comparison: in Europe 204 new first class and luxury hotels are being developed, in the USA and Canada just 112 hotels.

Among the markets in the region, Manila, Philippines, reported the largest expected supply growth (+43.0 percent) if all 9,968 rooms in the market’s total active pipeline open. S

Year-to-date, 67 hotels have opened in the region with 8,957 rooms. In the remainder of 2013, 215 more hotels are expected to open with 34,826 rooms.

Among the Chain Scale segments, the Upper Upscale segment, with 37,053 rooms, accounted for the largest portion of rooms in the total active pipeline with 30.8 percent of the region’s rooms.

The total active U.S. hotel development pipeline comprises 2,700 projects totaling 319,482 rooms, according to the April 2013 STR Pipeline Report.

Year-to-date 2013, seven hotels opened in the region with 912 rooms. In the remainder of 2013, 35 more hotels are expected to open with 5,644 rooms. The most rooms are planned to open in the Luxury segment (seven hotels with 2,387 rooms) and the Upscale segment (10 hotels with 1,439 rooms).

Among the region’s markets, Panama City, Panama, reported the largest number of rooms in the total active pipeline with 3,186 rooms.

With the U.S. hotel industry nearly fully recovered from the recession, are lenders finally ready to revive the long-dormant construction industry for hotels? Some hoteliers speaking at an industry conference this week in Los Angeles said that construction lending has come back, and a wave of new hotel openings will result in the coming years.

The sale of hotel properties in the first quarter of 2013 is estimated to have totaled $410 million, rising 7% year-over-year. This momentum provides a good basis for continued growth in 2013 after a strong 2012, which was a peak year for traditional volume at $1.2 billion for the year.