For Aussies who dream of living the millionaire lifestyle – but on an affordable budget – the latest Hotel Price Index (HPI) from Hotels.com has revealed eighteen destinations globally where Aussie travellers nabbed five-star hotel luxury for $200 or less per night in 2016, with Southeast Asian favourites leading the pack.
For the second year running, top-of-the-range luxury was enjoyed for far less in Siem Reap, Cambodia, the gateway to the ruins of Angkor Wat, which came out on top as the best-value destination among those analysed for five-star accommodation under $200 per night. The average price paid for a five-star hotel room in Siem Reap in 2016 was $140 per night.
The vibrant streets of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia came in as the second-most affordable destination for five-star accommodation where the average price paid for a luxury hotel room was only $143 per night. A five-star room in the beachside town of Pattaya in Thailand ($163) and in Istanbul, Turkey ($170) also topped the list of destinations where Aussies nabbed lavish accommodation for under $200 per night.
The HPI is a regular report on accommodation prices in major destinations across the world, tracking the movement in prices that people actually paid for their accommodation and providing valuable insight into the reasons behind these changes. The data is drawn from bookings made on the hundreds of thousands of accommodations on the Hotels.com websites worldwide.
Back home, popular Australian destinations offered premier accommodation on a shoestring budget, with Brisbane, Adelaide, Cairns, Canberra and Perth all coming in under $200 per night in the average price paid for a five-star hotel room. Across the ditch, Aussies will be saying ‘Kia Ora’ to the affordable hotel prices Rotorua and Christchurch offered in 2016, at just $170 and $176 per night respectively for a five-star room.
The latest Hotels.com HPI also revealed that Anaheim in the United States took out the top city in the world among those analysed where Australians paid the most for five-star accommodation, at an eye-watering $870 per night. Mykonos in Greece ($622), Cancun in Mexico ($598), Florence in Italy ($570) and Hawaii’s Honolulu ($558) came in second, third, fourth and fifth place respectively.