LONDON and HENDERSONVILLE—The Central/South American hotel development pipeline includes 147 projects with 21,539 rooms, according to the June 2009 STR Global Construction Pipeline Report released last week.
“Brazil is certainly one of the hot markets that everyone is talking about right now,” said Duane Vinson, vice president of content management at STR. “We’re seeing a lot of development in mid to smaller markets with the emergence of the country’s middle class.”
Panama City, Panama, ended the month with the largest amount of rooms in the In Construction phase among the key markets with 1,432 rooms. Sao Paulo, Brazil, (1,389 rooms) and Bogota, Columbia, (1,091) also reported more than 1,000 rooms in the In Construction phase.
“Most of what’s being built in Central and South America is in the Upscale and Economy segments, which account for 22.4 percent and 28.6 percent of the region’s total active pipeline, respectively,” said Vinson.
Among the Chain-Scale segments, three segments accounted for the majority of the total active pipeline. The Economy segment accounted for 26.2 percent of the total active pipeline with 5,641 rooms. The Upper Upscale segment made up 21.0 percent of the total active pipeline with 4,519 rooms. With 4,409 total rooms in the active pipeline, the Upscale segment accounted for 20.5 percent. The Luxury segment was responsible for the smallest portion of the total active pipeline at 6.1 percent and 1,315 rooms.
Central/South American pipeline by Chain-Scale segment for June 2009 (number of rooms):
