STR Global reports the Asia/Pacific pipeline for August 2009

The Asia/Pacific hotel development pipeline includes 997 hotels with 239,313 rooms, according to the August 2009 STR Global Construction Pipeline Report released this week.

“Hotel construction continues to be strong in the region,” said Duane Vinson, vice president at STR. “The amount of development seen in China and India is truly astounding, with nearly 170,000 rooms in the active pipeline. Thailand and Bangkok specifically are experiencing heavy development with over 6,000 rooms in the In Construction phase and approximately 11,000 in the active pipeline.”

Among the key markets, Shanghai, China, reported the most rooms in total active pipeline with 14,944, followed by Bangkok, Thailand, with 9,687 rooms. Beijing, China, also reported more than 5,000 rooms in the total active pipeline with 6,536 rooms. Five markets reported less than 500 rooms: Melbourne, Australia (398 rooms); Seoul, South Korea (344 rooms); Osaka, Japan (274 rooms); Tokyo, Japan (160 rooms); and Brisbane, Australia (156 rooms).

Within the Chain-Scale segments, the Upper Upscale segment accounted for the largest portion of the total active pipeline with 23.9 percent of rooms (57,180) rooms, followed by the Upscale segment with 23.6 percent of rooms (56,531 rooms). The Economy segment and the Midscale without Food and Beverage segment accounted for the smallest percentage of the total active pipeline: The Economy segment reported 4.5 percent of total rooms (10,839 rooms), and the Midscale without Food and Beverage segment reported 2.6 percent (6,126 rooms).