Major hotels putting all their money into fast growing Asia/Pacific market

DATELINE BEIJING - While scanning my International Herald Tribune over morning coffee in the lounge at The Ritz-Carlton Beijing (great hotel – highly recommend you book here) I came across a story quoting STR Global - a marketing giant that looks at travel trends among other things - about hotel occupancy rates in the Asia/Pacific region.

According to STR, Asia/Pacific nations have seen strong recovery from the recent global recession, with over-heated China leading the way, and that has led to a hotel building boom throughout the region.

China, as always, is leading the construction of new hotels, with 101,118 rooms now being buoilt – that represents more than half of those under construction in the region. India is next with 31,104 new rooms under construction followed by Thailand (8,089 rooms), Vietnam (7,277) and Indonesia (5,103).

And, according to the STR report, the Asia/Pacific region is no longer depending solely on North American and European travellers to keep those rooms filled. While the region has seen a vast improvement of overseas travellers from the darkest periods of the recession, the rapidly expanding middle class in Asia is accounting for most of the occupancy in the region these days.

As a result, every major global hotel chain plans aggressive expansion in the Asia/Pacific region – Hilton Hotels & Resorts has 38 new properties currently under construction in China alone (I stayed a couple of nights on this trip at the new Beijing Hilton and this is one Hilton that stands out in the chain – lots of marble and plenty of smiles from eager staff).

So, what does all this mean for us North American travellers?

Well, even with the aggressive expansion, get set to pay more for hotel rooms in Asia/Pacific countries because the new hotels are costing a lot more to build and the highly-trained staff at those properties will be paid more. That means the costs will be passed along to us.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that the newer Asia/Pacific hotel room rates will still be 50 per cent cheaper than European properties of the same quality.
So, the Asia/Pacific region remains the best value in international travel.