Macau Daily Times
By Natalie Leung
The average hotel room rate in Macau has been reported as the highest among the Asia-Pacific region and the fifth most expensive when compared with other major travel destinations around the world, the 2010 hotels.com Hotel Price Index (HPI) revealed.
According to the Hong Kong Report of the survey released last week, Macau’s average room rate per night was HKD 1,472, an increase of 19 percent or HKD 233 over the year of 2009, making the city the most costly travel destination in terms of accommodation surpassing cities such as Singapore, Kyoto, Sydney and Tokyo in the Asia-Pacific region.
It was the eighth consecutive year that hotels.com has conducted the survey in 75 countries and regions covering more than 110,000 hotels of different star ratings.
The company, which offers reservation services of hotel accommodation in over 130,000 properties worldwide, said the HPI is based on bookings made on its website and prices shown are those actually paid by customers rather than advertised rates for 2010.
Looking at the top 10 most expensive hotel prices across the world, Macau was listed fifth following New York, London, Zurich and Paris, while Singapore was the ninth with a surge of 32 percent to HKD 1,338 in 2010.
With an average room rate at HKD 1,897 per night, New York City topped the rankings that compared the prices among 44 popular travel destinations.
The sixth, seventh and eighth spots were taken by Milan, Venice and Amsterdam with a rate of between HKD 1,443 and HKD 1,377.
Hong Kong was ranked the 34th on the list, but with a surge of 33 percent in the room rate to HKD 929 it ranked the third highest growth globally.
Prague indicated the largest increase of 39 percent (to HKD 1,066) among the major city destinations, followed by Shanghai of 37 percent (to HKD 890), according to the HPI report.
Meanwhile, Ho Chi Minh City, Beijing and Bangkok were reported having the least expensive hotel rooms between HKD 732 and HKD 701, a decrease of 5 or 7 percent over the year 2009.
The report found that the US tourists were the “biggest spenders” when outside their home country with an average hotel room spending of HKD 1,243 per night, which was closely followed by the Russians of HKD 1,242.
Also, travellers from Hong Kong spent HKD 1,096 per night on hotels overseas, HKD 155 less than the mainland Chinese.
According to hotels.com, as the global economy slowly recovers from the financial crisis, “Americans felt more secure spending money on leisure travel at home and away, but paid on average more for a night’s hotel stay in 2010 than in 2009 – a two percent increase in global hotel prices.”
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