19% more rooms to be added in 2019 over last 2 years

The recently released HVS ANAROCK report estimated addition of 8,574 keys in the market in 2019, which will be nearly 19 per cent rise over the last two years. The first two months of 2019 recorded a staggering all India growth of nearly 11 per cent in RevPAR. The report revealed that in 2018 average rates grew by approximately 6.25 per cent in 2018, unlike in 2017 and 2016 where occupancy was the main driver of growth in RevPAR. In 2018, the industry witnessed an India-wide RevPAR growth of 9.6 per cent over 2017 to arrive at an absolute RevPAR of 3,927. In fact, the report highlighted that the industrywide ADRs in 2018 grew at a rate faster than long-term inflation rate of 4.5%, suggesting that markets are now on a steady path to recovery, even though they have a long way to tread before they can reach levels witnessed during the Boom Period from 2005 to 2008. In Rupee terms however, the 2018 RevPAR is approximately 40 per cent lower than that of the Boom Period, which was even more stark in absolute Dollar terms, where it is approximately 147 per cent lower than the Boom Period.