More than half a million new hotels will be introduced to the Asia Pacific region’s inventory over the coming years.

In its pipeline report for December 2016, STR revealed that the region ended last year with a total of 592,139 new rooms under contract, covering 2,646 hotel developments. This represents a 2.4% increase, in terms of rooms, compared with December 2015.

More than half of these rooms (266,032 in 1,148 hotels) are already under construction, which marks a 4.2% year-on-year increase.

Among market segments, upscale hotels have the highest number of new rooms under contract (25.7% with 151,996 rooms) and in construction (27.1% with 72,031 rooms). The upper-upscale segment was the only other segment to account for 20% or more rooms in construction (24.8% with 66,066 rooms).