Winning and Losing Countries in the Hotel Revenue-Per-Room Race

Here are some excerpts from Daily Lodging Report from the past week. If you’re not a subscriber, you should be. Get news on hotel deals, development, stocks, and career moves. Sign up here, now.

Sunday, February 26

DAC Developments announced plans for a new 26-story Sonder Hotel in Chicago, Illinois. The 285-foot glassy tower will replace an outdated surface parking lot and single-story commercial building on South Wabash Avenue. Upon completion, the $100 million development will boast a modern lobby, 6,300 square feet of office space on the fifth floor, a ground-level retail space and 62 parking spaces within the building.

Icona Resorts is proposing in Ocean City, New Jersey, to build a $150 million, 325-room hotel project with an array of upscale retail shops and family-friendly amenities, including a pool overlooking the boardwalk overlooking the Boardwalk between Fifth and Sixth streets, the OCNJ Daily reported. To build the project, Icona Resorts needs the city to sell them what is now municipally owned land that serves as a large public parking lot.

The American Hotel & Lodging Association is promoting Kevin Carey to Senior EVP and COO

Skift Note: Let’s hope Sonder’s latest hotel goes up faster than its stock recently has.

Monday, February 27

IHG Hotels & Resorts said it is pursuing an ambitious expansion plan in Greater China that explores popular and emerging destinations. IHG currently has more than 1,000 hotels operating or under the pipeline. In their Luxury & Lifestyle brands segment, Regent received a brand remodeling plan. As we recently covered, the Regent Hong Kong will return and their second Shanghai hotel, Regent Shanghai on the Bund, will open its doors in the second half of this year. IHG’s InterContinental Hotels & Resorts brand will continue to expand, highlighting the newly upgraded InterContinental Shanghai Harbour City and the upcoming InterContinental Shenzhen WECC. The upgraded Hualuxe Hotels and Resorts 2.0 will open hotels in Sanya, Handan and other popular destinations. IHG said their newly rebranded Even Hotels is accelerating its Greater China network this year. Holiday Inn will have new openings in popular cities and destinations such as Sanya, Beihai, Xi’an and Chengdu, while Holiday Inn Express will accelerate its reach to lower tier cities. Openings from these and other brands in 2023 will cover more than 15 provinces and municipalities.

The Standard Hotel is expected to open in the fourth quarter of 2023 near Orchard Road in Singapore, across from Shangri-La Singapore along Orange Grove Road. The five star hotel will have 143 rooms, a lobby bar, infinity pool as well as a pool bar.

Virgin Hotels’ latest property in New York City has opened as the brand’s seventh location. The 460-guestroom hotel on Broadway is still wrapping up final construction projects and ironing out kinks ahead of its grand opening in the spring. Virgin New York City offers 460 guest rooms and suites, 9,000 square feet of event and meeting spaces, an outdoor Conservatory, a multi-room hub filled with food, beverages and lounges, and a heated pool.

Lodging Econometrics released its Q4 year-end Global Construction Pipeline Trend Report. At the close of 2022, LE analysts state that there are 6,035 projects/1,091,929 rooms under construction worldwide. Projects scheduled to start construction in the next 12 months count for 510,969 rooms.

Skift Note: IHG says it has the biggest ground game in China.

Tuesday, February 28

Belmond and the Cipriani family have reached an agreement to put an end to all litigations between them around intellectual property. The Hotel Cipriani of Venice, a flagship property of Belmond, will be the only one in the world with that name. The Cipriani Group will be able to continue to expand its hospitality activities with some of its projects developed with Belmond as a partner.

Marriott International signed an agreement with Grimit S.r.l. to bring The Ritz-Carlton brand to Italy. Through a significant conversion of the former Hotel Grande Bretagne in Bellagio, the waterfront property is slated to offer 59 guestrooms and 46 suites by 2026.

Dubai Holdings has acquired full ownership of The Westin Paris – Vendome after purchasing Henderson Park’s stake in the 400-room hotel, Institutional Real Estate said. The Westin Paris – Vendome will continue to partner with Marriott International, under The Westin brand. Dubai Holdings said it will begin considering future plans for the property after the Paris Olympics in 2024.

Skift Note: Arrigo Cipriani, owner of Venice’s Harry’s Bar, has come out ahead in this deal. The Cipriani brand belongs to Belmond for Europe, to Arrigo’s family for the rest of the world; but the Belmond owner LVMH grants “exclusive long-term licenses to the Cipriani group in Europe for the operation of Cipriani-branded restaurants and hospitality businesses,” notes Il Fatto Quotidiano. These properties include Casa Cipriani in Milan.

Wednesday, March 1

STR’s global “bubble chart”, updated through February 17, 2023, showed strong performance to kickstart the year and revealed winners and losers for revenue per available room, or RevPAR. Among all countries with room supply of more than 50,000 rooms, Israel, Singapore, France and the United Arab Emirates led in RevPAR on an actual basis, STR, the gold standard for hotel performance benchmarking, reported. On the other hand, Tunisia, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, and Indonesia were among the bottom five performers in RevPAR. Overall, 29 of the 48 countries with hotel supply greater than 50,000 rooms recorded growth in RevPAR versus the matching 28-day period in 2019. Saudi Arabia grew RevPAR by a staggering 67%. Nigeria took a spot in the top five RevPAR growth markets.

Nikkei reported that Japan will launch a project to encourage global hotel operators to open luxury properties in national parks as early as 2024. The government wants tourists to consider Japan as a nature destination. One or two national parks are expected to be selected by the government, which will then invite luxury hotel operators to open small boutique hotels of up to a few dozen rooms. They make it sound so easy. Under the new plan, the government is considering allowing operators to open hotels outside the current designated areas with permission. 

Somewhat relatedly, STR said the reopening of Japan’s international border several months ago, along with the National Travel Support campaign, have helped boost Tokyo’s hotel average daily rate beyond pre-pandemic comparables. The rise in room rates was preceded by improving occupancy which came in at 74.8% in December 2022.

Service Properties Trust kept its positive momentum going, reporting a 159% increase in normalized FFO in 4Q22. Adjusted EBITDAre rose 27%. They also sold four hotels for $25.8 million last quarter, completed $610.2 million in secured financing and recently announced (stock symbol: SVC) is purchasing Travel Centers of America, including SVC’s interest. SVC is under agreement to sell its remaining nine Marriott branded hotels with 1,210 keys for $88.5 million.

Hilton Grand Vacations announced a solid 4Q EBITDA beat while also giving 2023 guidance which was higher than expectations. HGV bought back 2.5 million shares for $100 million in the quarter as well as an additional 2 million shares for $80 million, year to date.

The Nesuto brand arrived in Victoria in Australia, with the opening of Nesuto Docklands in Melbourne. This is the first Victorian property for Daiwa Living Nesuto Holdings, part of the Japanese-owned Daiwa House Group. The opening of this A$100 million new build apartment hotel is the 14^th Nesuto branded hotel operated by Daiwa Living Nesuto across Australia and New Zealand, reports Hotel Management. The hotel has been developed in partnership with AsheMorgan. It has 211 studio, one and two-bedroom apartment rooms across 13 floors with views of Melbourne port, bay, city and The District precinct. The property is located within The District Docklands.

Veris Residential has checked out of the North Jersey hotel market, according to its fourth-quarter earnings report. Veris sold its 351-key Hyatt Regency hotel in Jersey City for $117 million to a joint venture of Taconic Capital Advisors and HEI Hotels & Resorts affiliates and the 371-key Residence Inn and Envue hotels at Port Imperial in Weehawken for $97 million to Blue Sky Hospitality Solutions, which is an affiliate of Navika Capital Group.

Skift Note: Japan’s assertive effort to woo luxury hotels to build boutiques in its national parks is part of its broader ambition to draw a record number of inbound travelers by 2025.

Thursday, March 2

The number of foreign tourists arriving in Vietnam in February reached 933,000, up 7.1% versus January. The General Statistics Office said the year-over-year comparison was February 2023 was up 31.6%. In the first two months of 2023 there have been 1.8 million foreign visitors arriving in Vietnam, up 36.6% over the first two months of 2022. That number is barely 60% of what the first two months of 2019 were. Most of the visitors the first two months were from Asia at 1.29 million. European visitors totaled 242,500 and the Americas totaled 186,300. Vietnam is aiming for a total of 8 million foreign tourists this year. They received 19 million in 2019. The projection may be revised higher as it was made before China decided to drop Zero-Covid and reopen its borders. So far China has not included Vietnam in the list of 20 countries where travel companies can organize outbound tours with flights and hotels service.

Hilton announced DoubleTree by Hilton Nagpur. Hilton signed with Abhijit Realtors and Infrastructure Private Limited. This marks the entry of the DoubleTree brand in Maharashtra, India’s third-largest city, and the first Hilton in Nagpur. The new 135-room hotel is scheduled to open in early 2026

Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts and Red Sea Global (Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia) announced plans to introduce a Four Seasons Resort as part of the Red Sea development. The new Four Seasons will be located on Shura Island, the development hub, home to a yacht marina, leisure and lifestyle facilities, retail offerings, 18 hole golf course and more. The Four Seasons Resort will offer approximately 149 rooms and suites, all with views over white sand beaches and crystal clear waters. It will feature six restaurant and lounge outlets, and more.

Choice Hotels International announced the board of directors approved a 21% increase in the quarterly cash dividend on their common stock. The quarterly dividend rises to $0.2875 per share from $0.2375.

Concord Hospitality said that, in 2022, it reported 66 successful transactions, including 12 new hotel openings, an additional 15 third-party management contracts, and 10 newly-opened branded restaurant and rooftop bar concepts. Concord saw an additional 18 hotels that had a change of ownership where Concord was retained to stay on as the management company. The company’s hotel revenues grew to $981 million.

Skift Note: Vietnam has benefited from the return of some tourists, including travelers from Russia, the U.S., India, and Australia. But it needs China’s outbound tourists to have a full recovery.