China leads Asia hotel boom

SHANGHAI, June 4 (Reuters) China is Asia's hottest spot for hotel development, accounting for nearly half of all new projects in the region, according to an industry report.

Of the 386 hotels being actively pursued throughout Asia, 188 are in China, and 134 of those are rated four- or five-star, according to the report released late on Friday by US-based industry tracker Lodging Econometrics.

Most of the new projects are going into China's large coastal cities and manufacturing centres slightly inland, said Patrick Ford, Lodging Econometrics' president.

''It's a development period like none other,'' he said.

''China ... has the fastest-growing inbound tourist inflows of any country and is projected to be the largest tourist destination in the world by 2020.'' He added that Beijing's rush to build enough quality hotels for the 2008 Olympics is helping propel the boom, with 25 new hotels in the pipeline in the Chinese capital alone.

Most of the world's major hotel operators are active players in China, including U.S.-based Marriott International Inc., Hilton Hotels Corp. and Starwood Hotels&Resorts, as well as Britain's Intercontinental Hotels Group Plc. and France's Accor SA.

China also has a number of homegrown players trying for a piece of the action, including the nation's top chain, Jinjiang International Group, which is planning a 300 million dollar initial public offering in Hong Kong as early as September.

The industry has also been helped by the rise of domestic online travel agents, led by Ctrip.com and eLong Inc., which act as central booking centres for an industry that is otherwise still highly fragmented.

Asia's second most active market after China is India, with 78 projects containing 12,244 rooms in the pipeline.

Of those, 44 percent are near outsourcing office centres in cities like Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai.

Reuters PDS VP0435