"London is booming right now," acknowledges Ford, with hotel construction further spurred by the upcoming Olympics in 2012, plus a new rule which will allow for creation of real estate investment trusts in the country. While perhaps not a core catalyst, Ford maintains the greater liquidity offered by the public markets from a REIT structure "is one more item in a developer's arsenal to say, 'We should be building.'"

A lack of rooms in Moscow and St. Petersburg is leading to brisk hotel investment in Russia, which Ford says is being further instigated by the country's robust economy from its oil and gas industries. Presently, there are 10 hotels in the St. Petersburg pipeline and 15 in Moscow, with the country overall pursuing 34 projects that total nearly 9,000 rooms.

Turkey, meanwhile, is also enjoying solid economic times, and has the fourth most hotel rooms under way in Europe with 28 projects and 5,874 rooms. Two countries which this year joined the European Union, Romania and Bulgaria, will benefit from that inclusion, says Ford. Romania has 10 hotel projects representing 1,064 rooms in the pipeline, five of which are under construction.

In other findings, LE reports that 53% or the European projects, or 272 of them, will be full-service operations. Most of those are in city centers. LE counts 281 projects between 100 and 200 rooms, mostly select service properties offering limited food and beverage or meeting facilities. The study also revealed that 72% of the projects in the pipeline already have selected a brand, and Ford said another 10% will likely make such arrangements as they approach the approval and financing process. "Having over 80% of all new openings branded is striking testimony to the power and importance of international brands in a growing globalized economy," he says.