Asia Pacific hotel construction trends downward

A new report from Lodging Econometrics shows that development in the Asia Pacific region could be stalling. 

The company’s recently-released "Asia Pacific Construction Pipeline Trend Report," which excludes China, found the region has 1,539 projects/308,792 rooms in the works, a figure that is down 6 percent by projects and 4 percent by rooms year-over-year.
 

For hotels currently under construction, figures are similar. Excluding China, the Asia Pacific pipeline has 864 Projects/179,056 Rooms, down 4 percent by projects and 3 percent by rooms YOY. There are 285 projects/60,349 rooms scheduled to start construction in the region over the next 12 months, down 4 percent by projects and 11 percent by rooms. Projects in early planning, 390 projects/69,387 Rooms, are down 11 percent by projects and 16 percent by rooms.

While the negatives are trending downward, a report released by STR last month shows a different outlook, though it included China in its valuation. The company’s July 2016 pipeline report showed 585,492 rooms in 2,547 projects under contract in the Asia Pacific region, overall a 5.1-percent increase in rooms under contract compared with July 2015.

However, the region’s projects in the “in construction” phase were still in the negatives, down 0.6 percent year-over-year with 255,525 rooms in 1,042 projects, even including China. Despite this, STR found Shanghai, China, to have reported the largest number of hotels in the “in construction” phase, with 9,177 rooms in 36 hotels. Other markets with more than 5,000 rooms under construction included Jakarta, Indonesia (7,123 rooms in 27 hotels); Chengdu, China (6,526 rooms in 25 hotels); and Bali, Indonesia (5,209 rooms in 30 hotels).