Thousands of new hotel rooms planned for Mexico and Caribbean this year
By Lisa Schwarz From St Cloud Times
With a winter like we’re having, visions of white-sand beaches giving way to gently lapping turquoise waters are like money in the bank. And the Caribbean tourism industry is banking on it.
By the end of this year, 7,974 new hotel rooms are expected to open in the Caribbean and Mexico, according to Smith Travel Research. That’s almost double the 3,617 rooms that were added in 2013.
STR put the room inventory of the region at 24,487 at the end of 2013. That means the room count at the same time this year will have increased by one-third.
For the average traveler that’s all inside baseball — unless you recently went to book a room for a mid-winter getaway and found there was no room at the inn or the prices had risen out of your league. More supply means more availability for you, and it can mean better prices as competition for your dollar increases.
The biggest growth is expected in the luxury sector, with 1,775 of the new rooms slated for that category. About 1,640 of the new rooms are in the “upper midscale” segment.
If you travel in one of those price ranges, you’re golden. But if you travel more inexpensively (I sure do), that could change things for you, too. Hotels and resorts have life cycles, and as the newest and best are unveiled at the top end of the market, last year’s top places to stay tend to slip a bit in cachet.
You might, right away or in time, find you can afford what was once out of your reach — great hotels and resorts with the same amenities you wanted before, but now cheaper since the glitterati have moved on.
Keep an eye out— and don’t stop. Smith Travel Research says almost 25,000 new rooms are in the pipeline — either in final planning or under construction.
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