Provider of global hotel intelligence Lodging Econometrics (LE) has compiled construction pipeline counts for every country and market, revealing a record high of rooms around the world.

The in-depth report, which includes 176 countries, states that the total global construction pipeline rose to a record high of 14,051 projects/2,327,923 rooms — a 9% increase in projects and an 8% increase in rooms year-over-year (YOY).

The top countries by project count are the United States with 5,653 projects/693,207 rooms (just 230 projects shy of its all-time high of 5,883 projects set in the second quarter of 2008), and China with a current pipeline of 2,991 projects/592,884 rooms, which is a new high.

The US accounts for 40% of projects in the total global pipeline while China has 21%, resulting in 61% of all global projects being concentrated in just these two countries. Following the two are Indonesia with 378 projects/63,196 rooms, Germany with 320 projects/57,689 rooms, and the United Kingdom with 280 projects/40,970 rooms.

The franchise company leading the pack is Marriott International with 2,534 projects/420,562 rooms. Hilton Worldwide follows closely with 2,334 projects/340,626 rooms. Next is InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) with 1,769 projects/259,057 rooms, and AccorHotels with 980 projects/175,002 rooms. These four company brands account for 54% of all projects in the global hotel pipeline.

The first half of 2019 saw a total of 1,374 new hotels/196,237 rooms open around the world with an additional 1,675 hotels/236,334 rooms scheduled to open by year-end.