Sixteen luxury hotels will be built in Shanghai over the next two years, according to a report by the international property and hotel investment consultants Jones Lang Lasalle.

The report said that the average price of a room for one night in a five-star hotel in Shanghai hit 1,678 yuan (209 U.S. dollars), up from last year's record of 1,649 yuan (206 U.S. dollars).

"The hotel room price in Shanghai is third only to that of Tokyo and Hong Kong in the Asia-Pacific market. The city's luxury hotel room price is getting close to the international price standard," said the report.

Jones Lang Lasalle forecasts that Shanghai will see 4,500 more luxury hotel rooms by the end of this year. In four years, the number will have increased by 11,000.

The Shanghai Tourism Committee estimates the total number of beds in the city will rise from the present 90,000 to 400,000 in 2010. The big market shortfall is being eyed by foreign hotel investors.

Nearly half of the hotels in Shanghai were state-owned in 2004 and just 7.9 percent were owned by overseas investors as well as those from China's Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao, according to Jones Lang Lasalle's earlier reports.

(Xinhua News Agency September 5, 2006)