The latest Global Hotel Construction Pipeline Trend Report from Lodging Econometrics (LE) reports that the global hotel construction pipeline at the end of Q4 ’21 stands at 13,770 projects/2,304,386 rooms. Year-over-year (YOY) the total global pipeline decreased 1% by projects and is largely unchanged by rooms.
Worldwide, at year-end, there are 6,101 projects/1,136,680 rooms currently under construction. Projects scheduled to start construction in the next 12 months stand at 3,547 projects/518,159 rooms at the end of 2021, and projects in the early planning stage are at all-time highs and stand at 4,122 projects/649,547 rooms. Conversion projects are at an all-time high as well, standing at 1,448 projects/190,322 rooms.
The top countries by project count are the U.S. with 4,814 projects/581,953 rooms and China reaching a new all-time high at Q4 with 3,693 projects/700,567 rooms. The U.S. accounts for 35% of projects in the total global construction pipeline, while China accounts for 27%, resulting in 62% of all global projects in just these two countries. Following distantly is the U.K. with 313 projects/48,770 rooms, Indonesia with 304 projects/48,175 rooms and Germany with 277 projects/48,827 rooms.
Around the world, the cities with the largest pipeline counts are Dallas with 152 projects/18,180 rooms; Chengdu, China, with 144 projects/29,485 rooms; and Atlanta with 133 projects/17,593 rooms. Shanghai, China, follows with 127 projects/24,279 rooms, and then New York with 121 projects/19,303 rooms.
The leading franchise companies in the global construction pipeline by project count are Marriott International with 2,536 projects/426,744 rooms, Hilton with 2,521 projects/376,251 rooms, InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) with 1,652 projects/244,179 rooms and Accor with 940 projects/166,411 rooms. These four companies account for 56% of all projects in the global pipeline.
Brands leading in the pipeline for each of these companies are Marriott’s Fairfield Inn with 360 projects/43,791 rooms, Hampton by Hilton with 764 projects/101,455 rooms, IHG’s Holiday Inn Express with 613 projects/78,791 rooms and Accor’s Ibis Brands with 274 projects/37,937 rooms.
Globally, throughout 2021, 2,246 hotels opened, accounting for 340,667 rooms. A total of 469 of those hotels and 76,363 rooms opened in the fourth quarter of 2021. LE is forecasting 2,805 hotels/428,037 rooms to open in 2022 and another 2,934 hotels/447,575 rooms to open in 2023.