Market analytics firm Smith Travel Research (now STR), in its latest review, said that hotels are on the rise in the Caribbean. This they believe is largely attributed to the fact that higher numbers of rooms are being constructed across the region.

Data from the entity hotel pipeline showed that for the month of January the region had some 152 projects executed, accounting for about 31,787 rooms in construction.

According to reports by Travel Weekly’s Gay Nagle Myer, these figures represents a 26.9 per cent jump in the number of rooms in the final phase of development.

“Four countries reported more than 1000 rooms under construction, led by Mexico with 16,699 rooms, followed by the Dominican Republic with 6,356 rooms, Cuba with 1,616 rooms and Jamaica with 1,425 rooms,” the report outlined.

SLOW START TO 2020 FOR HOTEL INDUSTRY

It was also highlighted that majority of the region’s rooms in construction are in the upper tier segments, as upscale projects represented the largest percentage increase (70.1 per cent) in activity year-on-year.

While expansion and construction projects continue to advance, the hotel benchmarking firm also highlighted that the region’s hotel industry got off to a slow start.

“It was a sluggish start for the Caribbean’s hotel industry in January. The region’s hotel occupancy was 66.5 per cent last month, which represented a 3.7 per cent decline when compared to the same period last year,” the hotel benchmarking firm outlined in new data released.

The data also revealed that the downturn was accompanied by a 1.5 per cent decline in average daily rates to US$253.09 and a 5.1 per cent reduction in revenue per available room.

“Overall revenue fell to US$1.35 billion for the month, down 2.6 per cent from January 2019,” the data revealed.

— Kellaray Miles

The STR’s report surveyed approximately 1976 properties comprising about 261,810 rooms in the greater Caribbean region.