The Bench's Global Hotel Review

Source : By James Chappell, Managing Director of The Bench

The Bench recently presented a review of 2007 Global Hotel Performance at two major hospitality events, the Hotel Investment Conference Asia Pacific (HICAP) - and the International Society of Hospitality Consultants' Annual Conference, both in the cosmopolitan and thriving city of Hong Kong.

The review presented by James included valuable insights into how the global hotel economy has fared over the year to
date. His presentation looked specifically at RevPAR growth in the key global markets of the US, UK, Europe and Asia
Pacific and also the principal sectors within those regions.

Some key conclusions and statistics shared by James included:

United Kingdom

  • RevPAR has continued to grow in 2007 after a strong performance in 2006 and is likely to continue into 2008
  • UK RevPAR growth for 2007 is currently 13.2%
  • The majority of the growth is confined to city centres such as London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester and Liverpool;
  • growth in the regional markets is much lower
  • This RevPAR growth is being driven predominately by Average Room Rate, 13%, whereas Occupancy is flat at .5%
Europe

  • RevPAR was down slightly on 2006 at 8.4% compared to 11.61% but still very positive
  • Germany has maintained the levels of Occupancy and ARR achieved during the World Cup, as a strong conference market supports demand
  • Like the UK, the growth is predominately in ARR, whilst Occupancy levels have remained static
  • Bedroom supply growth in Europe has remained static over the last year, growing by less than 1.5%.
    Americas
  • US RevPAR was down slightly on 2006, from 7.5% to 5.5%, but business fundamentals remain strong
  • New September YTD data, however, shows RevPAR at 5.7%, indicating a trend towards our Year End forecast of 6%
  • US Luxury and ć…¤pper upscale?sectors have shown strong growth, with the Budget sector weakest
  • New York has been the strongest city in the US to date, with 12% RevPAR growth, caused by a combination of
    decreased supply in the market and strong trading conditions
  • Supply growth in US markets started to spike in 2006, rising to over 2%
  • Strong RevPAR growth of 20% in South America, with the three cities San Paolo, Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires all above 12% growth year to date.
Asia

  • After a weak first quarter, the region shows a 4% RevPAR growth compared to 8% in 2006; Asia has surged to 11.3% year to date
  • Growth is strongest in India (29%), Singapore (34.6%) and the southeast Asia economies of Vietnam, Indonesia and Cambodia on 44%, 40% and 36% respectively
  • Growth in South East Asia has been caused by a perfect alignment of rate growth environment
  • China shows a negative growth to date of -2.8%, hampered not by decreased demand but rather by a large increase in hotel stock.
HICAP was also attended by Jonas Ogren, Sales Manager for The Bench in Asia Pacific, who was pleased to report that
the uptake of The Bench in the region continues to grow, mirroring the true business value of accurate and timely
management information upon which to base strategic revenue-critical decisions.

The Bench now has well over 750 properties participating in the region and more are being added by the day. All of the
major hotel groups are committed to The Bench and are increasingly being joined by local hotel groups and independent
hotels across the region.

The market overview presented by James Chappell at these key industry events was made possible by the performance
data held on The Bench ?global data entered daily by all Bench users, who themselves benefit from the fastest, most upto-date performance benchmarking analyses available, accessed via The Bench.