Despite an economic slowdown, a falling stock market and continued concerns about a possible tariff war, China’s hospitality pipeline totals remain at or near all-time highs as the hotel-construction boom continues. According to the latest figures from Lodging Econometrics, the total China construction pipeline stands at 2,523 hotels with 556,645 rooms.

As of second quarter, the construction pipeline is slightly less than the all-time high of 2,658 hotels and 557,716 rooms set in Q4 2014 and is up 5 percent by hotels year-over-year. Currently, China has 1,814 hotels and 389,328 rooms under construction; hotels starting construction in the next 12 months are at 367 hotels with 78,361 rooms; and hotels in the early planning stage are at 342 hotels with 88,956 rooms.

In first half, 173 hotels with 35,585 rooms opened across China. The LE forecast for new hotel openings expects another 461 hotels and 71,788 rooms to open in second-half 2018, bringing expected new hotel openings to 634 hotels and 107,373 rooms by year-s end. Looking farther ahead, 548 new hotel openings are expected in 2019 and 540 in 2020.