The World Travel and Tourism Council ( WTTC ) revealed in its Economic Impact of Cities report that Latin America is making steady progress in reactivating the sector, and highlighted the role of the Chilean capital in tourism recovery.
Marriott International, Inc. (NASDAQ: MAR) today announced that it has received approval from Mexico’s Federal Economic Competition Commission, COFECE, for the acquisition of the City Express brand portfolio from Hoteles City Express, S.A.B. de C.V. (BMV: HCITY), paving the way for the company’s entry into the affordable midscale segment.
Among key hotel markets in Latin America, São Paulo led in recovery of gross operating profit per available room (GOPPAR), according to STR‘s June 2022 P&L data release.
With an average expenditure of $2,177 per outbound tourist, Brazil was the seventh highest spending outbound market globally in 2021. This is forecasted to increase to $2,325 by 2025, to become the sixth highest behind Australia, the US, Iceland, Singapore and Mauritius, found GlobalData. The leading data and analytics company notes that the Brazilian market’s high average overseas expenditure, coupled with the fact that affordability and accessibility are not the primary factors influencing destination choice, means there is significant scope to attract these tourists to long-haul or luxury destinations.
When it comes to top-line performance recovery, average daily rate (ADR) has been the standout metric for most markets around the globe. Mexico has been no different, with ADR for the first four months of 2022 indexing 15 percentage points higher than the 2019 comparable. Occupancy, on the other hand, was at just 89% of 2019 pre-pandemic levels.
Key hotel markets in South America are still struggling to regain profitability due to inflation, pandemic-driven gaps in travel, and lessened impact from events, according to STR‘s February 2022 P&L data release.
Every country around the world has had to work through significant challenges since the start of the pandemic in 2020. For Chile, challenges were nothing new as protests that began in October 2019 were already affecting hotel performance around the country. The pandemic and those protests are still ongoing late into 2021, but Chile’s hotels are slowly but surely moving toward performance recovery.
Knowing you might not have time to watch our full webinars, we are pleased to continue our series of COVID-19 webinar summaries. In this latest edition, we talk performance in Brazil.
Chile’s hotel occupancy reached 90% of the 2019 comparable, according to September 2021 data from STR.
Brazil’s hotel industry has surpassed its 2019 comparables in average daily rate (ADR) for two of the last three months, according to September 2021 data from STR.
After a difficult winter, Brazil’s hotel occupancy is once again on the rise, reaching 44% in August 2021, or about 74% of the 2019 comparable. While occupancy recovery has been slow, the country’s rebound in average daily rate (ADR) has been strong, with monthly rates even exceeding 2019 levels earlier this year. August ADR reached BRL295.05, which was just 3.4% below 2019, as shifts in demand and supply have helped drive impressive ADR performance.
Colombia’s accelerated vaccination rollout and lessened restrictions on eligibility pushed the country’s vaccination rate to 32.1% as of 22 September, according to Our World in Data. Is that growing vaccination rate helping improve hotel performance in this key South American country? The answer would seem to be, yes, but to a lesser extent for some areas of the country.
Sonder Holdings Inc. (“Sonder”), a leading next-generation hospitality company that is redefining the guest experience through technology and design, is adding eight additional properties to its existing portfolio of managed and operated accommodations in Mexico City.
Most of South America continues to stagnate since the region exceeded 20% hotel occupancy in December 2020 thanks to the summer holidays and Christmas. However, one of the region’s key countries stands out for its inability to generate recovery momentum. Argentina closed May with the lowest occupancy (14.4%) in the region, which was well below the levels recorded in Chile (42.7%), Peru (38.4%), Brazil (30.9%), Uruguay (30.0%), and Colombia (25.0%).
Aimbridge Hospitality, a leading, multinational hospitality company, will assume ownership of Grupo Hotelero Prisma, the largest third-party operator in the Mexico market. With this acquisition, Aimbridge Hospitality will gain Prisma's esteemed team as well as management of 42 properties with over 7,500 rooms throughout the country including Westin Monterrey, JW Marriott Monterrey, JW Marriott Guadalajara, and Tribute Tulum.
Recent COVID-19 restrictions pushed Lima’s hotel occupancy down after the market had reached a six-month high in April, according to data from STR.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating effect on Mexican outbound travel, with the number of trips falling by 73%. This figure is the second-highest fall in the Americas, after Peru (76%). Despite commercial flights operating throughout the year at a limited capacity, many countries were reluctant to open their borders amid Mexico’s high COVID-19 infection and death rate. Ultimately, this has led to a devastating drop in outbound travel which will not recover until 2024, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.
March produced improved hotel occupancy across most of Mexico's markets, but beach destinations continued to lead the country's recovery, according to data from STR.
Mexico's hotel industry has been a rather unique case of linear performance recovery. While most countries have seen fluctuations in the metrics, Mexico has been on a steady ascent leading to a November that produced the country's highest performance levels of the pandemic.
The Mexican Market Report provides an insight of the current state of the Mexican economy, the tourism sector, and the evolution of variables that have a tangible influence on the hotel investment market amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.