Skift: China’s Hotel Groups Are Bouncing Back

Skift: China’s Hotel Groups Are Bouncing Back

By SEAN O’NEILL 

June 24, 2022 2:00 AM 

Thursday, June 23

Yesterday we reviewed a positive report on the New York City hotel industry by CBRE, and today the NY Post had a rebuttal from the Hotel Association of New York City. In fact, the headline said that the association slammed the report. The association is trying to get a big cut in the city’s hotel occupancy tax from 5.875% to 2.875% and a reduction in property taxes, so that report was not good timing for them. The association CEO, Vijay Dandapani, said CBRE’s survey was off base in predicting a return to pre-pandemic occupancy and revenue by 2024, saying there is a gap between expectations and hope. He said CBRE’s prediction RevPAR would leapfrog back to 2019 numbers this year was very unlikely. The association’s data for the first five months of the year has RevPAR at $155 compared with $184 before the pandemic. They also warned that in 2019 there were 122,000 rooms, and there are only around 100,000 now.