NASHVILLE—It was around the world in 45 minutes at the Hotel Data Conference on Thursday.
In a global review, Asia Pacific is the top region with 24.8% revenue per available room growth for June year to date, according to Sarah Duignan, director of account development at STR Global, who presented at the “Global Performance Trends” session.
All regions are showing positive YTD RevPAR growth.
“This is good news when comparing to year end 2009 where across the globe all regions were in double digit decline,” Duignan said.
Best to take the particulars region by region:
Asia/Pacific hotels
• Asia Pacific is hovering near double-digit demand growth at 9.4%.
• It was the first region to show occupancy growth. Duignan said she expects to see rate growth across the Asia/Pacific quite shortly.
• Tokyo is benefiting from a strong yen; June 2010 was a peak month for RevPAR.
Middle East/Africa hotels
• RevPAR for June YTD is 2.6%.
• The Middle East is still achieving rates in excess of US$200 due to a lot of luxury and upscale product.
• Occupancy is taking longer to come back than rate, according to Duignan.
• ADR growth was exactly 0.0% for the 12-month-moving average through June.
• There are 455 hotels in the pipeline and the growth is on an upward trajectory near 5%. Of note, Abu Dhabi will have 13,000 rooms coming online in the next five years, she said.
• World Cup impact in South Africa: in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg the impact for the first 11 days in June (before the matches began) was “extremely disappointing,” Duignan said. Furthermore, RevPAR performance improved only 11% on match days.
Europe hotels
• The region has 3.9% RevPAR growth in June YTD data.
• Western and Northern Europe are leading the way in occupancy with a lot of brands to facilitate business.
• 75% of the 22 STR Global forecasted European markets will close 2010 with positive RevPAR growth, Duignan said.
• Growth in Western Europe is occupancy driven. Geneva is doing well because of the United Nations and other global events.
• Southern and Eastern Europe is a mixed bag. “But revenue management strategies are less sophisticated in this area, I think it’s fair to say,” according to Duignan.
• There are 670 properties in the European pipeline. After unaffiliated properties are set aside, 40% of the projects are upscale and 40% are midscale.
Americas hotels
• RevPAR growth June YTD: North America, 3.2%; Caribbean, 5.8%; Central America, 7.1%; and South America, 19.0%.
