Credit: Ti Post

BEIJING, Aug 11 (TMTPost) —— Budget hotels represented by Hanting Express, Pod Inn, Home Inns, etc. have hiked their prices in Beijing, a popular summer tourist destination, with the prices of some hotel rooms in good locations as high as thousands of yuan a night, comparable to those of high-end hotels.

Summer tourism in 2023 is red hot. This year's summer tourism market is expected to be hotter than the same period in 2019 across the board. OTA platform data show that the 2023 air ticket booking this summer exceeded 70% of the same period in 2019. The strong travel demand has directly driven up the price of hotels.

For the crazy rise in prices of budget hotels, Hanting Hotel's parent company H World Group responded that because the hotel industry's supply recovery has not caught up with the rapidly recovering tourism market, the mismatch between supply and demand has also led to price fluctuations in popular destinations.

According to OTA platform statistics, bookings for air tickets to Beijing, tourist attraction tickets, and hotels in the capital city have all increased significantly compared to 2019. Among them, the number of hotel bookings in Beijing has increased more than two times compared with that of 2022 from June 1 to July 10, 2023. Hotel demand exceeds supply, leading to the price rise of hotels. The average price of hotel orders in Beijing increased by more than 30% year-on-year in 2022 between June 1-July 10.

According to incomplete statistics, Hanting Express, Pod Inn, Home Inns, and other budget hotels have increased prices in Beijing during the summer period. Among them, the Speed 8 Hotel located in Wangfujing Pedestrian Street was the most expensive, with an average price of 1,705 yuan per night. In addition to the Speed 8 Hotel, the highest price of the Hanting Tiantan Store also reached more than 1,000 yuan. Overall, the price of a night in a budget hotel near the city center is more than 500 yuan, while in the suburbs of Pinggu, Huairou, etc., there is also a room of a hundred yuan for a night in a budget hotel.

The rising prices of budget hotels can also be reflected in the financial reports of the major hotel group. According to the financial reports of H Worlds, Beijing Tourism Group, and Jinjiang Hotel Group, the prices of these budget hotels in the first quarter of this year did increase compared with the first quarter of 2019 and the first quarter of 2022, and the growth rate is higher than that of the middle and high-end hotel types. Specifically, the average price of H World Group's budget hotels was RMB 208 per night in the first quarter of 2023, an increase of 21.6% year-on-year, and an increase of 18.2% compared with the first quarter of 2019. While the average price of the same group's mid- to high-end hotels was RMB 344 per night, an increase of 17.8% year-on-year, and an increase of 11% compared with the first quarter of 2019. The overall price increase of H World Group's budget hotels was higher than that of mid-to-high-end hotels.