Tourism and Hospitality industries see growth

 Latin America is one of the world’s fastest growing vacation and leisure markets. After a very slow 2012, hotel and tourism developers are back to building with high expectations for 2014. Developers are adding new properties in Mexico and the Caribbean in record numbers, the number of hotel construction projects in Mexico has more than doubled in the last 6 months.

Only five hotels (with a total of 354 rooms) opened in the region in 2012. As of today, 131 hotels are under construction with a total of 21,957 rooms being added in Mexico and the Caribbean, of those 4,000 rooms are in the luxury segment.

An example is Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc., who announced plans this month for a 50 percent expansion into Latin America during the next five years. Starwood CEO, Frits van Paasschen, sees, “strong growth in lodging demand and many opportunities for Starwood to expand in the region.” In the last two years, the company has opened 13 hotels in Latin America including its first hotel in Mexico City.

Other countries showing hotel construction booms: Dominican Republic (2,475 rooms), Bahamas (2,271 rooms), Puerto Rico (709 rooms), Aruba (320 rooms), and Jamaica (238 rooms).