COVID-19 webinar summary: 5 key points on Asia Pacific hotel performance, 2 October

Knowing you might not have time to watch our full webinars, we are pleased to continue our series of COVID-19 webinar summaries. In this latest edition, we talk performance in Asia Pacific.

“Flattening the curve”

Mainland China hotel performance is steaming, while occupancy in the Asia Pacific region (excluding Mainland China) presents low occupancy levels overall. U.S. occupancy has remained mostly flat in recent weeks even with a lift from post-natural disaster demand. Recovery in Europe, Australia and New Zealand is also flattening.

Mainland China demand continues to grow

Demand has been growing consistently over the months in Mainland China due to strong domestic demand and the new duty-free policy implemented.

Japan: Silver Week spike

Although hotel occupancy has been improving since the Japanese government “Go to Travel” campaign to promote domestic travel and help boost local businesses, levels have remained well below pre-pandemic levels with full recovery not expected for years. However, following the Silver Week (19-22 through September 2020), Japan saw an occupancy spike.

Domestic leisure demand picks up in India

While occupancy across India is taking time to recover, many leisure destinations began seeing weekend occupancy spikes in August. Hotels in some of these leisure destinations have even started seeing MICE business with weddings/groups of less than 50 people permitted. This too is aiding the recovery for leisure destinations to a certain extent.

What can we expect next?

Powered by Forward STAR data, the below image includes occupancy on the books for the next 90 days (as of 28 September) in Sydney and Sydney Surrounding, and further insights are provided in the full webinar recording. Occupancy-on-the-books intelligence will help us all understand recovery and provide much-needed context. Those insights can be accessed for free when you submit your data. If you are interested, please email sales@str.com.

For further insights into COVID-19’s impact on global hotel performance, visit our content hub.