Beijing hotels strong during the Olympics?

BEIJING – This city’s hotel market put in a strong performance for the opening days of the 2008 Beijing Games, seeing off a pre-Olympics lull according to data compiled by STR Global. During the early days of August, the market was recording average room rates of about RMB 1,500 (about US$218) and occupancy levels of below 60 percent.

Market performance began to recover from August 6, and recorded a dramatic improvement on the day prior to the opening ceremony (August 7). This performance level was largely maintained throughout the opening weekend and into the first week of the Games.

Damien Little, Director of Horwath HTL's Beijing office, said a number of issues affected the Beijing hotel market in the lead-up to the Olympics and that this had exacerbated the traditional pre-Olympic lull typically faced by the host city.

Little said the improved performance had been driven by leading hotels in the market with room rates one-and-a-half to two times higher than average. Occupancy performance, on the other hand, of below 80 percent, is a little lower than what may have been hoped for in the lead-up to the Games.

Connie Yan, country manager, China, STR Global said an analysis of the data show that it is really a tale of two cities with some hotels recording outstanding performance levels, while other hotels seem to be missing out.

”Hotels located in the CBD, Downtown and Yansha areas are typically performing strongly,” she said.