Omicron Variant So Far Just a Speed Bump for Hotel Developers
Skift Take
Real estate developers haven’t slowed down or dimmed interest in the hotel sector during the pandemic, even in parts of the world suffering the most from new variants.
Early Check-In
Editor’s Note: Skift Senior Hospitality Editor Sean O’Neill brings readers exclusive reporting and insights into hotel deals and development, and how those trends are making an impact across the travel industry.If hotel development directly reacted to coronavirus variants, construction would have tanked in countries like China. Instead, it’s done the opposite.
The Delta variant ushered in a new wave of lockdowns in China and Australia over the summer, zapping hotel performance in a matter of weeks. Real estate developers generally take a long view of economic conditions instead of reacting to what was expected to be a short-term hit like a variant. Construction trends proved that ideology over the third quarter.
The room count in China’s development pipeline reached an all-time high, according to Lodging Econometrics. The Asia Pacific region’s development pipeline held steady during the same quarter. Accor, home to an executive team not hiding their sour near-term outlook on performance in the region, even launched a new brand in China late last month — a development signal variants are a blip in the world of hotel development.
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