PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — Latin America had 632 projects/109,597 rooms in its hotel construction pipeline at the end of 2020, down 11 percent by projects and 15 percent by rooms year over year (YOY)—the lowest project and room counts seen in as many as eight years in the region, according to a recent report from Lodging Econometrics (LE).
The number of projects currently under construction (329 projects/57,300 rooms) remained primarily unchanged YOY at the end of Q4 2020. At the year’s end, 171 projects/31,729 rooms were scheduled to start construction in the next 12 months and 132 projects/20,568 rooms were in the early planning stage; both of these stages recorded year-over-year declines of 20 percent or more by project and room count.
Through Q4 2020, 69 new hotels totaling 12,777 rooms opened in Latin America—the fewest openings the region has seen in this real estate cycle. Twenty-three of the 69 hotels that opened in 2020 opened in the fourth quarter. This brings the count of open and operating hotels in Latin America to 11,174 hotels/1,178,890 rooms. LE is forecasting 121 projects/21,862 rooms to open in 2021 and 153 projects/24,275 rooms to open in 2022.
Mexico ended the year as the country with the largest hotel construction pipeline in Latin America: 220 projects/39,093 rooms. Brazil followed with 116 projects/17,576 rooms—the country’s lowest recorded number of projects and rooms—then Peru with 43 projects/5,656 rooms, the Dominican Republic with 26 projects/5,421 rooms, and Cuba with 25 projects/7,685 rooms.
LE reported that the cities in Latin America with the largest pipelines were Lima, Peru with 32 projects/4,588 rooms; Mexico City, Mexico with 24 projects/3,413 rooms; Cancun, Mexico with 21 projects/10,767 rooms; Guadalajara, Mexico with 21 projects/2,787 rooms; and Sao Paulo, Brazil with 15 projects/2,592 rooms.
The hotel franchise companies with the largest construction pipelines in Latin America were Marriott International with 106 projects/16,999 rooms, Accor with 100 projects/12,990 rooms, Hilton with a record-high 96 projects/13,746 rooms, and InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) with 57 projects/6,682 rooms.
Leading brands in the pipeline were Accor’s Ibis brands with 71 projects/9,074 rooms, Hilton Garden Inn with 26 projects/3,512 rooms, and Hampton by Hilton with 25 projects/2,983 rooms—a record high project count. These are followed by IHG’s Holiday Inn Express with 15 projects/1,828 rooms and Marriott’s Fairfield Inn with 12 projects/1,724 rooms.
