Over a year ago, when the pandemic was sweeping around the globe, Europe seemed to be in a bad place. And this was not an illusion – both Western and Eastern Europe did suffer a great deal and fell prey to the poor coordination that was attained among the neighboring countries, something the European Union admirers will have a hard time acknowledging and fighting criticism of. Nevertheless, the relatively speedy recovery process, as well as fairly robust vaccination schemes seem to strike an optimistic note for the continent’s future development, and businesses did not wait for long to acknowledge this process.
As such, Europe is leading way when it comes to the hospitality construction pipeline. In May 2021, a total of 107 projects and 15,093 rooms were scheduled to start welcoming guests there – an impressive amount in and of itself but even more so given that the runner-up – North America – can flaunt mere 80 projects. Nevertheless, the key count is actually higher for the latter (18,477), which points to an interesting difference between the two markets, whereby Europe keeps its traditions and prefers smaller boutique hotels compared to its American counterpart.
Further, the APAC region is going strong with 60 properties and 13,654 keys scheduled to go live during the past month, followed by the Middle East with 25 hotels and 4,535 rooms. The list is concluded by Africa and Latin America with 16 and seven projects respectively.
When it comes to the specific countries though, the results are not surprising. The US is maintaining its status quo with record-high 65 properties and 14,554 keys. In line with that, New York City tops the list of urban growth markets in May, with eight openings and 2,524 rooms. The second place rightfully belongs to China with 31 launches and 7,895 keys, while the UK concludes the top-three leaderboard opening 28 hotels and 3,404 rooms to the guests. Germany and Spain follow with 17 and nine properties respectively (2,109 and 1,877 keys).
Once again, investors, developers, and other industry players should probably be pleased with such robust indicators of the sector recovery. Despite much fear and insecurity regarding the travelers’ sentiment in the post-pandemic world, the latest research shows that most people cannot wait to come back to holiday and business trips, leading to a potential upcoming boom in tourism, where all this new supply may come in handy. We can only hope that the reality does indeed reveal itself in this manner.