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Pandemic impact on the Southern Cone's development pipeline

After analyzing the pandemic impact on the hotel pipeline in Australia and New Zealand, STR jumps regions to look at the COVID-19 impact on hotel development in the Southern Cone* (Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina).

**For the purpose of this analysis, we only included those full countries in the Southern Cone.

Existing supply picture

Between 22% and 29% of hotels remained open during COVID-19 lockdowns in the Southern Cone. At the time of writing, most hotels that closed due to lockdowns had since reopened: Argentina (76%), Uruguay (71%) and Chile (68%).

Future development

At the time of writing, countries in the Southern Cone are still showing a considerable amount of pipeline projects, according to STR’s AM:PM, although many have been shelved since the beginning of the year.

Although Chile has 3,051 rooms in the active pipeline, 135 have been abandoned this year. At the time of writing, 1,849 rooms are in construction in the market. Chile’s pipeline remains the most robust in the Southern Cone.

Argentina has 2,139 rooms in the active pipeline, but the market has a higher number of abandoned and deferred rooms this year at 765 and 118, respectively.

Uruguay, on the other hand, presents the lowest number of rooms in the active pipeline (186).

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Future development

Conclusion

With much uncertainty remaining around the pandemic, we could see a further decrease in pipeline activity as more developers decide to abandon their plans for new hotels in the Southern Cone. 

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