London, Shanghai, Dubai, along with Brazil and Mexico, lead
their respective regions in hotel development, according to Smith Travel
Research Global's July 2010 pipeline reports released on Thursday.
Europe's pipeline stands at 678 hotels, a total of 118,126
rooms, while less than half of those projects currently are under construction,
STR Global reported. London is the busiest market in the region, with more than
8,000 rooms under development, followed by Berlin and Moscow, both of which
have about 4,000 rooms under development.
Of the more than 256,000 rooms in more than 1,000 hotels
under development in the Asia/Pacific region, more than half are in China, where
almost 100,000 are under construction, according to the report. India has the
second-largest pipeline in the region, with 46,562 rooms in development, 29,819
of which are under construction.
China's most active market is Shanghai, with 13,980 rooms in
the pipeline and more than 80 percent of those rooms under construction.
In the Middle East and Africa, Dubai accounted for 32,686 of
the total 126,273 rooms under development. Abu Dhabi, with 14,641 rooms under
development, and Saudi Arabia, with 17,283 rooms under development, also led in
terms of growth numbers.
Central and South America has 133 hotels, a total of 20,770
rooms, under development. More than one-third of those rooms are in Brazil, and
about one-quarter in Panama, according to STR Global. Argentina and Colombia
both have more than 1,500 rooms under development as well.
Mexico accounts for more than 60 percent of the 17,208 rooms
under development in the Caribbean/Mexico region, according to the report, and
about half of those rooms are under construction. Other busy areas for
development in the region include the Dominican Republic, with 1,929 rooms, and
Puerto Rico, with 1,210 rooms.