HONG KONG - Hotel crunch

TTGasia.com, Nov 16-22, 2007

WHILE hoteliers elsewhere would moan in the face of new competition, Hong Kong properties performed well the first seven months of this year despite a jump in room inventory, from 43,866 rooms at the end of 2005 to 51,742 rooms by July 2007.Projected inventory by the end of 2007 is 55,174 rooms, which translates into an increase of 26 per cent in two years.According to the Hong Kong Hotel Association (HKHA), the swelling number of rooms has had such limited impact on occupancy, there was only a slight two percentage point decline from January to July 2007 to 83.4 per cent, versus 85.4 per cent in the same period last year.Meanwhile, average hotel room rates rose robustly by 11.9 per cent compared to the same period last year.

>>Full article