Chinese Hotel Company’s Recovery Shows How Fast Travel Demand Can Snap Back
Photo Credit: Major Chinese hotel company Huazhu saw massive growth just between February and March this year. Wikimedia / Sebastian Rittau
Skift Take
Huazhu's massive one-month jump in revenue should be a giant jolt of optimism for hotel owners in struggling markets. People really do want to travel and book hotel stays once they get the all-clear on health and safety.
One of China’s biggest hotel operators recently began to consistently outperform pre-pandemic business levels across its entire portfolio. The rest of the world should take note.
Shanghai-based Huazhu — which has nearly 7,000 hotels across brands like Joya and HanTing in China as well as Steigenberger Hotels in Germany — moved from operating at just over half of pre-pandemic rooms revenue in February to 95 percent a month later, company leaders reported this week. Over the Labor Day holiday in China earlier this month, Huazhu’s hotels averaged a 25 percent increase in business from 2019.
Huazhu’s revenue per available room, the hotel industry’s key performance metric, was 7 percent higher than 2019 for the month of May, as of the start of this week. The company chalks up its rapidly accelerating recovery
