STR Global announces new Chinese markets
STR Global, the leading provider of market data to the world's hotel industry, is pleased to announce its continued expansion in China with the launch of the new markets of Hainan and its southern resort city of Sanya. The data for both markets on this island in the South China Sea comes from 31 hotels. Hainan is China's largest special economic zone and the country's designated "International Tourism Destination".
Whilst occupancy in Hainan and Sanya has been relatively stable for the year-to-date July 2011 when compared to the same period in 2010, demand has grown steadily during the last few years. Comparing demand growth for the first seven months of the year, Hainan saw a jump of 21.6 percent between 2009 and 2010, followed by 6.4 percent between 2010 and 2011. For Sanya the trend is similar with an increase of 18.4 percent between 2009 and 2010 and 9.6 percent between 2010 and 2011.
Such demand has seen gains in average daily rate (ADR) significantly in excess of the national average. Whilst the percentage increases in ADR for Sanya (13.2 percent) are smaller than those for Hainan (23.5 percent), the absolute ADR of Sanya (CNY1,393.82) exceeds that of Hainan (CNY1,284.19). To a certain extent this reflects the hotel mix of Sanya, which includes many of the upscale international brands such as InterContinental, Ritz-Carlton, Mandarin Oriental, Banyan Tree, Hilton and Sheraton.
The strength of demand and the resulting attractive revenue per available room (RevPAR) has seen new supply reaching and being readied for the market. Hainan alone has 24 new hotels in its pipeline, which accounts, in part, for the stabilisation of occupancy seen in both Hainan and Sanya.
"With a big push coming from Beijing to promote the development of Hainan Island as a tourist destination, it was important for STR Global to be able to provide data on this market to hoteliers, developers, owners and investors", said Elizabeth Randall, managing director of STR Global. "We are delighted so many of the island's hotels recognise the clear value we add."
About STR Global
STR Global provides clients—including hotel operators, developers, financiers, analysts and suppliers to the hotel industry—access to hotel research with regular and custom reports covering Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and South America. STR Global provides a single source of global hotel data covering daily and monthly performance data, segmentation data, forecasts, annual profitability, pipeline and census information. Hotel operators can join the surveys on a complimentary basis and benefit from free industry data. STR Global is part of the STR family of companies and is proudly associated with STR, STR Analytics and Hotel News Now. For more information, please visit www.strglobal.com.