Best of Budapest & Hungary

The CEE hotel market has experienced rapid growth in the last three years, in terms of hotel performance and transaction volume, due to the dynamically expanding tourism industry. Within the region, the Budapest hotel market has seen exceptional growth, as its RevPAR (revenue per available room) growth outpaced other key regional capital cities, according to Colliers International's latest hotel market study.

Additionally, Budapest has a significant hotel pipeline with another 2,500 hotel rooms expected to be available over the next three years. This growth is mainly due to the rapidly growing tourism market in recent years. In 2017, a record number of guest nights, 8.9 million were registered in the Hungarian capital, which was 6.9% higher than the previous year. Almost 90% of overnight stays in the Budapest market were attributed to foreign guests in 2017. In order to understand Budapest’s position in comparison to its CEE capital peers, Colliers examined the key performance indicators of the hotel markets such as RevPAR, ADR and occupancy rates in Prague, Bratislava and Warsaw. According to the benchmark of the real estate advisor company, Budapest ranks second in this peer group when it comes to ADR and RevPAR, anf third place, following Prague and Warsaw, in occupancy rates. Based on expectations, there is still room for improvement in the Budapest hotel market, especially in room rates. “Budapest’s fast growth in recent years was achieved despite the accompanying strong expansion of the city’s Airbnb market. According to our research, Budapest can be considered a mature market in terms of Airbnb supply, with a ratio of Airbnb listings to hotel rooms almost as high as that of London. Even though the Hoteliers in each segment notice Airbnb’s presence, these accommodations are still considered the main competitors of budget/economy hotels, located in the city center. However, it is expected that Airbnb’s impact in the upscale/luxury segment will be more significant when it launches its new premium services - Airbnb Plus and Airbnb Beyond,” says Tamás Steinfeld, head of research for Colliers International Hungary.