Excluding China, the Asia Pacific Construction Pipeline stands at 1,732 projects/368,820 rooms at year-end

According to analysts at Lodging Econometrics (LE) the Asia Pacific, excluding China, pipeline ended the fourth quarter of 2020 at 1,732 projects/368,820 rooms, down 10% by both projects and rooms year-over-year (YOY). The Asia Pacific region, no different than any other, has felt the effects of the COVID-19 global pand­­­­emic. It has had universally damaging effects to the region’s economies and hotel development. However, there is renewed optimism by economists that as the region’s economies emerge from the current downturn, so will hotel development.

Even as the region struggled in 2020, it opened a total of 352 new hotels/69,563 rooms for the year. Q4 ’20 saw the most openings of any quarter of 2020 with 106 hotels/19,147 rooms. LE is forecasting another 321 projects/72,602 rooms to open in 2021 and 375 projects/65,579 rooms to open in 2022.

At the end of the fourth quarter, the region had 881 projects/197,043 rooms under construction. Projects in the scheduled to start construction in the next 12 months phase of the pipeline accounted for 390 projects/77,483 rooms. Projects in early planning stood at 461 projects/94,294 rooms. All stages of the pipeline for the region are down YOY.

While the pipeline is down YOY, announced renovations and conversions in the region have soared over the last four quarters of 2020. The renovation and conversion room count totals are the highest the region has seen in years.

Countries in the region with the largest construction pipeline totals include Indonesia with 333 projects/54,411 rooms, India with 255 projects/33,896 rooms, Vietnam with 176 projects/68,040 rooms, Japan with 155 projects/30,214 rooms and Australia with 154 projects/29,550 rooms. Asia Pacific cities outside of China with the largest construction pipelines are led by Jakarta, Indonesia with 75 projects/13,212 rooms. Next is Seoul, South Korea with 64 projects/12,466 rooms and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia with 46 projects/13,084 rooms. Bangkok, Thailand is next with 46 projects/11,582 rooms and Phuket, Thailand with 32 projects/6,758 rooms.

The top four franchise companies in the region are: Marriott International with 271 projects/57,864 rooms, AccorHotels with 220 projects/49,917 rooms, InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) at 153 projects/32,220 rooms, and Hilton Worldwide with 95 projects/22,090 rooms.

Top brands in Asia Pacific’s construction pipeline, excluding China, are Marriott International’s Fairfield Inn at 43 projects/6,532 rooms and Courtyard at 33 projects/6,946 rooms. AccorHotels’ Ibis brands have 42 projects/8,284 rooms and Novotel has 46 projects/10,957 rooms. IHG’s top brands are Holiday Inn with 60 projects having 12,315 rooms and Holiday Inn Express with 25 projects/4,985 rooms. Hilton Worldwide’s top brands include Hilton Hotel & Resort with 33 projects/9,166 rooms and DoubleTree by Hilton with 30 projects/6,270 rooms.

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