According to a census carried out by the multinational STR Global, until the end of February 2012 the global inventory of hotels was 13.41 million rooms; this represents a growth since 2000 of 20.7%.
Experts say that it is a satisfactory figure for the last 12 years. However, taking into account the year-on-year measurement made by the Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR), the average percentage is lower than expected, standing at 1.6%.
Part of this scenario is the responsibility of the economic crisis experienced during the last two years in powerful markets such as Europe and North America. This is evident in the detail of the results, which shows that one of the markets that grew the most in the global context was Asia Pacific.
The highest growth figures year by year correspond to emerging countries, which suggests that the global impact of the crisis did not allow hotel growth figures to rise sufficiently.
