Nearly one million hotel rooms are under construction globally and the latest STR data for March confirms an overall year-over-year decline across all regions analyzed. The strongest contraction is seen in Europe, while Asia-Pacific is in comparable figures with the same period of 2022
A decrease of 18% compared to March 2022
In Europe, there are 184,851 hotel rooms under construction, i.e. vertical construction on the physical building has begun. The figure is 18.2% lower than in March last year. In turn, there is also a contraction of 15.9% in the number of projects under contract and whose construction will begin in the next 12 months, since there are 133,580 rooms in the final planning phase.
Regarding the planned rooms, 156,095, the decrease is 5.4%.
By adding the three stages, in Europe there are 474,526 rooms under contract, 13.7% less than in the same month last year.
Asia Pacific: a drop of nearly 5%
In Asia-Pacific, there are 904,935 rooms under contract, 4.4% less than last year, mainly because the number of rooms under construction fell by 5.8% (476,993) and by 29 .6% in the final phase of (105,435). The planned rooms, projects confirmed under contract whose construction will begin in more than 13 months, are 322,507, or 1.9% more than in 2022.
Middle East and Africa: decrease of 5.8%
In the case of the Middle East and Africa, there are 119,505 rooms under construction, 5.8% less than in 2022. If the focus is on the final planning phase, there is a 20.4% increase to add 45,529 rooms, and plan another 84,116 rooms (+21.2%)
In total, there are 249,150 rooms under contract (+6.4%) and most of the construction activity is concentrated in the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia (42,033) and the United Arab Emirates ( 22,324) at the top of the activity.
The Americas are relatively stable
In the Americas region, rooms signed totaled 753,825, down 1.2% from a year ago. Of this total, 197,844 rooms are under construction, which fell by 4.5%. In turn, 278,383 rooms will begin to be built in the next 12 months (-19.6%) and an increase of 32.2% is observed in the rooms in the pipeline (277,598).
The United States concentrates most of the rooms under construction, followed by Mexico (10,803), Canada (5,899) and Brazil (5,549).
In 2023, we will witness a battle between the big chains in order to delight certain hotels.
