About the market…

The hotel industry is particularly geared to economic growth. According to PriceWaterhouseCoopers, the trend in the number of hotel overnights sold in the USA over the period 1991-2000 was 93 percent correlated to growth in the GDP. Only exceptional events such as September 11 can derail this relationship. Indeed in 2002, the correlation coefficient dipped to only 29 percent, as travellers shunned air travel, but bounced back solidly to 83 percent in 2003, thus illustrating the long-run durability of the rapport between economic growth and the hotel business.

Over the next decade demand for hotel services should grow at an above-average pace in Eastern Europe, Asia (excluding Japan), as well as Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America. Notably, the two current heavyweights, the EU and North America, are likely to lag in terms of growth rate due to the size and maturity of their travel and tourism markets. Although international travel expenditure will grow more than 50% faster than the overall average, it will still constitute only a little over 20% of total spending on travel and tourism by the end of the decade.

About Mintel’s research…

Pooling together the latest market analysis and trend data, Mintel's new report offers you all the insight you need for evaluating the international hotel industry’s prospects for growth. Use Mintel's research to:

Monitor shifts in hotel capacity trends

Track hotel performance, market by market

Assess the global economic outlook and the implications for tourism

Get to grips with the industry structure

Understand trends in hotel financing

Gain key insights into the main issues impacting on the hotel industry

Assess the performance and strategies of the major hotel groups

Pin point market potential before your competitors

Measure market forecasts and build realistic business models.

Intriguing findings include…

The best performing market in terms of yield growth in 2004 was Kuwait City, standing head and shoulders above the rest, with a 64% increase in revenue per available room.

Total capacity in hotels worldwide can currently be estimated at approximately 18.4 million rooms, and has been growing at a roughly 3.0% rate over the last five years

Of the total estimated 6.5 million rooms in the Americas in 2004, roughly two-thirds are in the US.