Macau emerges as the destination with most expensive hotel rates in APAC: HRS Q1 2015 Hotel Price Radar

SINGAPORE – According to the HRS Hotel Price Radar for Q1 2015, Macau, Sydney and Hong Kong emerged as the top cities with the most expensive average hotel room rates in the first three months of the year. With a 64 percent increase over hotel room rates in Q1 2014, Macau showed the highest increase amongst all Asia Pacific destinations. Macau has been actively developing its MICE and business events industry in order to diversify and avoid over reliance on revenues from gaming and mainland Chinese tourists. The availability of high-end venues has also boosted its attractiveness as a business events destination, leading to the huge jump in average hotel room rates. 
 

Based on data collected from all hotel bookings made via the HRS hotel portal in the first quarter of 2015, the analysis looks at per night room rates and found that hotel rates have continued to increase steadily in most cities across Asia-Pacific. Economic power houses like Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai, Jakarta and Bangkok saw strong double-digit increases in hotel room rates as compared with the same time period last year showing Asia-Pacific’s increasing popularity as a business destination. Cities where room rates declined such as Sydney, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur and New Delhi, experienced a less than 5 percent drop in prices. 
 

Todd Arthur, HRS’ Managing Director in Asia Pacific commented, “Asia-Pacific continues to draw visitors from across the world, and as this quarter’s HRS Hotel Price Radar shows, the business tourism segment in particular in going strong. In comparison with other markets, Asia-Pacific has also seen the highest overall increase in hotel rates this quarter. As hotel prices fluctuate and business needs change, our goal is to help clients get the most out of their hotel programmes and boost employee satisfaction through intelligent sourcing, detailed analysis of requirements and pricing factors, and value added partnerships.” 
 

HRS Q1 2015 Hotel Price Radar – Asia Pacific Average per Night Room Rates
 

Top APAC Destinations	Room Rate per night in Q1 2015 (in SGD)	Rate development compared to Q1 2014 in %
Macau	SGD 269	+64%
Sydney	SGD 243	-2.3%
Hong Kong	SGD 242	+20%
Singapore	SGD 233	+18.20%
Seoul	SGD 157	-0.90%
Beijing	SGD 121	+21.7%
Shanghai	SGD 120	+27.7%
Jakarta	SGD 107	+13.9%
Bangkok	SGD 99	+15.0%
Kuala Lumpur	SGD 96	-2.90%
Bengaluru	SGD 86	0.0
New Delhi	SGD 79	-3.50%