[photopress:taj.jpg,full,alignright]The hotel market in Asia Pacific is seeing much stronger growth this year than last according to half year results from the HotelBenchmark Survey by Deloitte. Room revenue per available room (revPAR) across the region is up 14.1% to $97 – outperforming the 9.4% growth achieved in 2006.
Improvements have been driven by double-digit increases in average room rates, which now stand at an average of $137.
The key winners in 2007 have been Asia’s resort destinations. Bali has continued to recover despite fresh travel warnings and achieved the region’s highest revPAR growth at 58.6% in the first half of 2007.
On the down side Bangkok has seen occupancy down 7.8% compared to last year, curbing revPAR to $82.
China meanwhile is seeing huge developments in its hotel industry but new hotel openings in all sectors of the market have diluted occupancy levels and slowed performance growth.
Shanghai, which will see its supply grow by over 6,000 rooms in 2007, has seen revPAR fall 1.2% to $97 in the first half of 2007.
Lorna Clarke, Executive Director of HotelBenchmark at Deloitte added: ‘The Asia Pacific hotel market continues to perform well with performance dominated by improvements in average room rates. The growth of low-cost airlines is making the region more accessible, allowing tourists to travel more easily to a wider range of destinations.
‘Ten years on from the start of the East Asia’s financial crisis and regional economies are also performing well, match this with greater intra-regional business travel and you can see how hoteliers are able to continue to push average room rates upwards.’
It is interesting looking at the figures to see that Mumbai leads with an amazing $253 average per room compared with the lowest, Penang, at $69. If Mumbai leads the pack it is worth pondering on what a suite at the Taj Mahal, pictured above, would cost. Worth accessing the site to see a chart of the comparative figures.
Source: Travel Daily News
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