Accor, Europe’s biggest hotel operator, expects strong improvement in the performance of its hotels in the important China market next year after a difficult 2009.Michael Issenberg, Accor’s Asia-Pacific chairman, said the company expects revenue per available room or revpar, a widely watched industry metric, in China to drop by 20-30% this year, mostly as a result of large new supply coming onto the fast-growing market. But he said the situation should stabilize in 2010.
He said, "Next year, you are not going to see anything so dramatic in terms of drops in China. There’s certainly a lot of supply coming into China, particularly in the tier-one cities. We do anticipate the year 2010 will remain a challenging year in China."
The word "challenging" is not one you use when you are pretty certain it is all going to be OK. China is one of Accor’s most important markets in Asia, home to 24 of its 54 new hotels opening in the region this year.
Reuters reports Michael Issenberg as saying, "We’ve been through difficult times. We had SARS, 9/11. We’ve recovered from all those, and we’re confident we’ll recover from this."