Hotels suffer dipping room rates amidst tourist arrival growth

Average rates slid 3% to $235 a night.

Even with market watchers predicting an influx of tourists to Singapore this year, hoteliers still look on with gloomy faces as average room rates (ARR) and revenue per available room (RevPar) were hit by declines in the first half of the year.

According to DBS Group Research, while industry-wide hotel occupancy for H1 remained strong at 85%, ARR slipped 3% to $235.

This has then resulted to RevPar dropping 2% to $199.

"In terms of RevPAR, midscale hotels were the only category to post marginal growth of 0.3%," DBS said, citing the latest data from Singapore Tourism Board.

Meanwhile, DBS pointed out that economy hotels experienced the biggest decline among hotel categories, with growth contraction at 2.2%.