QUESTION FOR THE WEEK: Hotels across Central and South America are seeing mixed performance, but what are the biggest brands across the region?

16 September, 2019

In our new weekly series to break up those Monday morning office blues, The Blue Swan Daily will be testing your knowledge and insight into the aviation and travel industry. This is all just for fun, but who knows? We may be able to find a prize somewhere around CAPA HQ. This week's question is detailed below. The answers will be revealed and winners (if there are any correct entries) announced next week alongside our next question.


Latest monthly data from benchmarking specialist STR has shown that hotels across Central and South America saw a mixed performance across the main business parameters in Jul-2019. While, occupancy levels rose +4.2% year-on-year to 60.1%, average daily rate (ADR) fell a massive -70.9% to USD92.16 and revenue per available room (RevPAR) also declined more than two thirds, down -69.7% to USD55.36.

The data highlights that on a positive note the region's demand continues to grow, pushing occupancy levels up. The ADR and RevPAR comparisons with last year are misleading as they have been significantly affected by currency fluctuations.

The hotel stock across Central and South America is dominated by Accor, followed by Marriott International, according to census data from STR. Accor's portfolio covered 58,937 rooms as of 30-Jun-2019, while Marriott accounted for 22,709 rooms. The companies also lead the development pipeline with 19,877 and 8,389 rooms under contract, respectively. Under contract covers the in construction, final planning and planning phases of the pipeline.

The accommodation situation across Central and South America is dominated by independent properties, but a number of new brands have entered the marketplace. STR data shows that over the last ten years, the number of branded properties in the region has increased 7%. "Economy and midscale brands, specifically, dominate not only existing supply, but also the development pipeline," according to the intelligence specialist.

Our QUESTION OF THE WEEK is... Hotels across Central and South America are seeing mixed performance, but what are the ten biggest brands across the region?

JOIN IN THE FUN: Send your answers to: The Blue Swan Daily Content Team

We will be revealing the answers at the same time next week, when we will be setting another question.


Last week we asked… There is increasing belief that the 'flight shaming' movement could influence a reduction in domestic air travel, but what are the world's ten largest domestic country markets?

The biggest domestic air market in the world is the United States of America (USA), which is double the scale of the second, China, and eight times the third largest, India. Following in fourth is Indonesia, just ahead of Canada in fifth. The remainder of the top ten are Japan in sixth, Brazil in seventh, the Russian Federation in eighth, Australia in ninth and Mexico in tenth.