PERSPECTIVE
LUXURY AND UPPER- UPSCALE HOTEL PIPELINES HIT RECORD LEVELS
Contributed by BRUCE FORD , LODGING ECONOMETRICS
The Fontainebleau Las Vegas will have more than 3,000 rooms when it opens later this year .
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uilding high-end hotels is not easy , it ’ s not inexpensive , but that hasn ’ t stopped developers from trying , according to new data from hotel supply and data consultancy Lodging Econometrics ( LE ).
In the latest Hotel Construction Pipeline Trend Reports from LE , at the end of the second quarter 2023 , the global hotel construction pipeline stood at 14,615 projects / 2,320,832 rooms . Of those project and room counts , the luxury and upperupscale chain scales both have record high project and room counts . Combined , these two chain scales account for 2,970 branded and unbranded projects or 20 % of projects and 654,717 rooms or 28 % of rooms in the global hotel construction pipeline .
Separately , both chain scales have record high project counts with luxury accounting for 1,100 projects / 227,278 rooms of the global construction pipeline and upperupscale having 1,870 projects / 427,439 rooms . Year-over-year these two chain scales combined have grown 22 % by projects and rooms .
There are currently 1,492 luxury and upper-upscale projects and 353,817 rooms under construction in the global pipeline . Another 584 projects / 122,123 projects are scheduled to start in the next 12 months , and the early planning stage of the pipeline has 894 projects with 178,777 rooms . Each stage of the pipeline for these two chain scale segments has increased YOY .
ON LOCATION Location matters , in particular for highend supply . At the end of Q2 2023 , hotel development in the luxury and upperupscale chain scales was largely found within the Asia-Pacific region , which currently has 1,351 projects / 332,883 rooms in the pipeline . In addition , 781 of these projects , accounting for 199,114 rooms , are in the under-construction phase of the pipeline .
Over the last five years , the Asia-Pacific region has led luxury and upper-upscale
74 hotelsmag . com September 2023