It seems 2007 was another massive year for travel as the Deloitte Global Hotel Ranking Report clearly shows. With a 6% increase in global travel over the previous year, 2007 has overtaken tourism forecasts for the fourth year in succession. It seems that despite the property gloom people are still travelling in huge masses.

The report usually measures the global ranking index (GRI) and the revenue per available room (revPAR) of hotels in countries and cities all around the world. With the lifting of a year long restrictions in March this year, US and European airlines can now fly to any destination within the two countries, further increasing the potential for growth.

Overall, the best performers of hotels were in South and Central America with revPAR growth of 19.4%. This was closely followed by the Middle East with 16.9% and Europe in third at 15.8%.

Interestingly enough, more than 50% of all world travellers chose Europe as their destination of choice. Let’s take a closer look at the world and how this has occupancy has affected tourism.

Asia Pacific

Within the Asia Pacific region were two major contenders, China and India. With many aircraft carriers offering low cost travel, tourists are making the most of this and flock to the two countries in huge numbers.

With a total input of 185m tourists in the whole Pacific region, it is no wonder to see high occupancy percentages throughout the year. Most were between 69 - 76%.

With the preparations to the Olympic Games, China experienced a huge domestic growth by attracting massive overseas investments. On average, rooms in China were U$ 127 per night, up by 7.5% from the previous year, but Hong Kong topped it all with an average of U$ 209 per room.

Compared to this Beijing’s revPAR was U$ 102, a rise of 9.1%.

In Japan, there was also an increase of tourists, 13.8% to be exact. This totaled the numbers of tourists to 8.3m. Tokyo is still considered a strong Market in North East Asia, taking second place behind Hong Kong with a revPAR of U$ 153. Average room rates however rose by 5.5% to U$ 200.

South Korea added U$ 9 to its revPAR finishing the year at US 143.

Mumbai climbed five places in the top 20 revPAR GRI to 8th place. RevPAR in the city soared to U$ 195, a whopping 47.3% increase. This is entirely made possible due to increased capacity at Mumbai’s airport and a shortage of rooms city wide. This shortage led hoteliers to push their room rates higher (they currently stand at U$ 285). The rest of the country has followed suit on this trend which led to further growth in all of India.

Vietnam has also seen nice growth with a 26.3% increase in Hanoi to U$ 137.

But the biggest “coup” was achieved down under by the Australians who, thanks to a bold marketing campaign have seen a huge influx of tourism. The eye catching slogan “so where the bloody hell are you?” raised the country’s profile and is responsible for the 5.6m travellers.

A lot of Chinese tourists make their way down under which can be attributed to an increased wealth in the Chinese population. Especially those who were able to cash in on the Olympic Games.

All major cities in Australia saw double digit revPAR growth in 2007 with Perth leading the occupancy ranking (85.1%). Overall, a total of 4.5m passengers passed through Perth’s airport in 2007. Room rates in Melbourne were U$ 172 (up by 20.3%) and Sydney U$ 187.

Europe

Europe is clearly the favorite destination for more than 50% of the world’s globetrotters. With an increase of 19m people to a total of 480m in 2007 many tourists have taken advantage of Europe’s infrastructure. However, according to Deloitte’s report, this massive increase can be attributed to bigger numbers in low cost air travel.

In fact, seven of the world’s top ten tourism destinations are in Europe. Leading the pack is France, followed by Spain, Italy, UK, Germany, Austria and Russia.

The UK market increased by 15.3%. While the strength of the Pound resulted in a decline of US visitors, the strong Euro has resulted in traffic from closer shores instead. This resulted in five UK cities being in the top 20 occupancy GRI. London stands tall with a massive occupancy rate of 82.8%.

France, or Paris retains some of the highest room rates in all of Europe, at € 232. Greece on the other hand has even higher average rates. Hotels in Athens had a revPAR result of € 37 which was an increase by 116% from the year before.

Italy took the lead in the top 20 revPAR GRI for the fifth consecutive year with a revPAR of € 192.

Israel managed to increase the total of new visitors by 24.3% despite the ongoing conflict with Lebanon.

Middle East & Africa

The Middle East managed to increase revPAR some 16.9% to U$ 108. Dubai has clearly taken the biggest chunk out of this cake, but neighboring emirates like Qatar are catching up. With 46m tourists stepping foot onto Middle Eastern soil in 2007, most of them visited Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Dubai’s room rates are counted amongst the strongest in the world at U$ 258. Also, the occupancy rates tally around the 84.5%, which are also among the highest in the world, ranking the city top in both the revPAR GRI and the occupancy GRI.

South Africa is hoping to attract a wealth of visitors with the World Cup of 2010 and banking on some 10m in total. Average room rates stand at U$ 97.

Central & South America

Central and South America saw an influx of 11.1% and 8.1% of tourism in 2007. A new pact also enabled citizens of Colombia, Guyana, Ecuador, Peru, Paraguay, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina, Venezuela, Suriname and Uruguay to travel freely across respective borders.

Another reason could be the votes of more than 100m people worldwide to place three of the seven wonders of the world in the region. With a great growth of revPAR 19.4%, Panama City took a huge surge forward. It is also the first ever Latin American city to feature in the rankings.

While Mexico only saw small increases from the year before, Mexico City still performed well enough with average room rates rising to U$ 178 (up by 6.4%).

In Brazil hotel performances were satisfactory overall. RevPAR in Sao Paulo went up by 27.8% to U$ 82. Rio de Janeiro’s room occupancy declined by 4.4%, but the average room rates rose by 18.4% to U$ 192.

Argentina saw an increase in arrivals by 11%. This was mainly due to a stable economy and favourable exchange rates. Buenos Aires experienced a revPAR increase of 14.4% and occupancy up by 1.7% to a total of 70.8%.

However, the fastest growing country in Latin America is Panama. The GDP was more than 10% last year and an increase of 27% in visitors during 2007. Panama City took centre stage with a 37.9% increase in revPAR to U$ 121. Also, the city’s occupancy rate increased to 84.7%.

_{Photo Credits: Pargon(Flickr)}

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