Midtier hotels still suffer declining RevPARs

January to April figures point to a 4.4% decrease in RevPAR.

Amongst all hotel segments in Singapore, the midtier level continued suffering revenue per available room (RevPAR) declines in the first four months of the year, OCBC Investment Research said.

Despite the good numbers on visitor days and visitor arrivals, industry-wide hotel RevPAR dipped 1.1% due to the lower average room rate (ARR).

Midtier hotels continued to suffer the weakest RevPAR performance with a 4.4% YoY decline for January to April, followed by Upscale hotels with its -1.9% YoY decline.

Citing the tourism board figures, the brokerage firm said visitor days increased +3.6% YoY while visitor arrivals increased +5.3% YoY for the month of April. For the first four months of the year, visitor days are up +2.6% YoY on the back of a +4.4% YoY growth in visitor arrivals.

"While we believe leisure demand will continue to hold up well in 2017, we remain cautious with regard to the strength of corporate demand," OCBC Investment Research analyst Deborah Ong said.