For those working in world cities for shorter periods, hotels and serviced apartments are an important part of a city’s residential offering. Short stay and medium business trips are particularly important to the luxury hotel market, in some cases competing with the prime residential rental sector.

Paris has the most expensive luxury hotel rates ($836 per day) (click on fig. 12 to enlarge). As the world’s number one tourist destination, hotel rooms here are at a premium and priced accordingly.

Rio de Janeiro, which has the cheapest prime rents among our world cities, ranks fourth by luxury hotel rates ($408 per day). Demand for hotel accommodation has been driven by a fast-growing offshore oil industry, attracting large numbers of short-term employees. This, coupled with the city’s high-profile international sporting events, notably the World Cup, has inflated prices for quality hotels in recent times.

The same is true of Dubai, which has a major tourism and conference industry, fuelling high luxury hotel rates, third only to Paris and London. Prime rents are low by global standards, reflecting the nascent nature of that sector.

At the other end of the spectrum, Shanghai has both low prime rents and low luxury hotel rates ($234 per day). Tourism here is a small sector compared with our other world cities, and hotels are targeted mainly at the price-sensitive domestic market.

Taken from
Savills World Research: 12 Cities - H2 2014