China’s Pipeline is Growing

It looks like the pandemic has had very little impact on the hotel construction plans in China. The country’s hotel pipeline keeps growing, currently reaching 3,454 projects with a total of 661,043 rooms. This is 2% more than a year ago and very close to the all-time high record of the region (3,574 hotels with a total of 647,704 rooms) which was set in the second quarter of 2020.

As many as 2,401 projects (437,731 rooms) are under construction at the moment. This is 5% more by the project number and 7% more by the room count year-on-year. The construction of additional 556 hotels (103,958 rooms) will start in the next 12 months. This is 6% less by the hotel number and 11% less by the room count. At the same time, the number of projects in the early stage is at an all-time high. In terms of categories, most early-stage projects belong to upper-midscale, upscale, and upper-upscale levels. As construction is slowly resuming to its pre-pandemic state in China, more hotel projects that are currently on hold will be advancing.

What destinations are the most interesting for investors? It looks like hotels in Chengdu are particularly popular as this Chinese city leads the country’s hotel pipeline in Q2 2021 with 138 projects with a total of 28,009 rooms. Shanghai hotels are the second most popular (123 hotels in the pipeline and 23,891 rooms) followed by Guangzhou (121 hotel projects and 24,836 rooms) and Wuhan (101 projects with 14,064 rooms). Hotels in Xi’an ranked fifth with 93 projects (16,395 rooms) in the pipeline.

Global hotel companies keep increasing their presence in the country, and so the number of hotels they are building in China is at a record-high level nowadays. Hilton Worldwide is in the process of constructing a record-high number of hotels (634 hotels and 120,697 rooms). InterContinental has 444 hotels (92,342 rooms) under construction in China, which is also a record. Finally, the third top franchise hotel company is Marriott International with an all-time high number of 394 hotels (105,961 rooms) under construction. JinJiang Holdings and Accord have the fourth and fifth largest hotel pipelines in China respectively.

Over the first six months of 2021, 221 new hotels with a total of 37,227 rooms opened in China. The plans for hotel openings in the second half of this year are the following – 622 hotels with a total of 90,586 rooms.