STR’s global “bubble chart” update through 18 March 2023 shows growing momentum in the Asia Pacific region and more than half of markets globally with better than 20% growth in revenue per available room (RevPAR) versus 2019.
Among all countries with room supply of more than 50,000 rooms, Israel, Switzerland, Singapore, the Dominican Republican and New Zealand led in RevPAR on an actual basis. That put Singapore in the top RevPAR spot for two consecutive running 28-day periods. Singapore was also one of the leaders in occupancy along with two other Asia Pacific countries—Thailand and New Zealand.
All countries in the RevPAR bottom 5 were the same as our previous update—Indonesia, the Czech Republic, Tunisia, Poland and Hungary. Despite remaining at the bottom in actual performance, all five of those countries saw some degree of growth versus the last update, which is another sign of improvement around the industry.
Overall, 40 of the 48 countries with hotel supply greater than 50,000 rooms recorded growth in RevPAR versus the matching 28-day period in 2019, which was the most since the beginning of this monthly update.
Among the eight countries where RevPAR is behind 2019 levels, only two were from the Asia Pacific region while the remaining six are European countries. This means the Asia Pacific region has finally come out from the shadow of the pandemic with more growth expected.
In growth terms, Saudi Arabia continued its momentum with a RevPAR increase of 71% from 2019. That performance has remained sustainable thanks to the pent-up demand from religious tourism.
Vietnam, on the other hand, stayed at the bottom with RevPAR 25% below the pre-pandemic comparable.
Among all the markets with room supply larger than 15,000 rooms, roughly 85% saw their RevPAR grow from 2019 levels. Overall, more than half of the markets grew their RevPAR more than 20%.
Just 44% of markets saw an occupancy gain versus 2019, while 91% reported increases in average daily rate (ADR). It has been a recurring theme that the rise in RevPAR has been driven by growth in ADR.
For individual markets, Egypt Provincial and Egypt’s Red Sea Resort reported ADR up more than 150% due to recent exchange rate fluctuations. Travelers have not been discouraged from visiting the Red Sea Resort area as occpancy grew 7% from 2019. Egpyt Provincial remained at a similar level to 2019.
This article originally appeared on STR.