The travel and tourism sector tends to thrive in times of stability. I'm not sure I would characterize today as a particularly stable time, but despite that, economies in many parts of the world continue to be anywhere from solid to thriving, with the notable exception of greater China.
But we've all read about a number of different stimulus approaches that the Chinese government is taking to try and both stabilize the Chinese economy and act as a bit of a catalyst for accelerated growth. For our business, it's been quite an interesting dichotomy: This year we've had a fairly sharp drop to the operating performance of our 500-plus hotels there, although in the last couple months it has seemed to stabilize a bit. But against this backdrop of a really difficult operating environment, we will likely sign more new deals in China than in any year in our history. It gives me some comfort that, even with some economic headwinds, the Chinese development community fundamentally believes strongly in the future of travel and tourism.
The Asia-Pacific region excluding greater China has in some ways been the bright, shining star. We've seen extraordinary performance. You're looking at an economy like Japan, which obviously has some demographic challenges and weakness in the yen, but despite that, last quarter we saw nearly 20% RevPAR growth. And a lot of that is due to outbound U.S. and high-income Chinese travelers.
Western Europe, despite some political instability, has really strong demand, both from cross-European borders and the United States. I had lunch with Italy's ambassador recently, and we were laughing: Who would have ever thought that Italy would have the most stable political environment in Western Europe? If things continue to go well, [prime minister Giorgia] Meloni will likely be the first Italian prime minister since [Silvio] Berlusconi to serve a full term.
In the Middle East, notwithstanding the instability created by the current conflict and the specter of an expansion of that conflict, the Emirates continues to be quite strong. The development pace in Saudi Arabia related to the giga-projects continues to be a really compelling story, notwithstanding what appears to be a little bit of a pullback on the Neom project. We've got more than 40 hotels under development in Saudi Arabia.
In the Caribbean and Latin America, there are two different sets of markets. The resort markets continue to thrive; we're seeing a slow and steady recovery in the big urban markets. And again, lots of political leadership changes across that region. In South America, we have a modest but growing footprint, and it's certainly a big focus for our development teams in the region.
I had the good fortune to spend some time in East Africa this year. Among the trends we're monitoring as we gear up for 2025 is this appetite for new destinations, for authentic experiences. I think the pipeline we have across the continent is going to dovetail really well with those emerging consumer desires. We have a tented safari camp in the Masai Mara -- a JW -- and we've got, in various stages of discussions, a few dozen other safari lodge opportunities across the continent. We continue to grow in some of the big cities, Cape Town and the like.
I would characterize the U.S., which is our biggest market, as settling into kind of a normalized environment from a demand perspective. There are lots and lots of hypotheses about how the incoming administration will impact the travel and tourism sector. But even before [President Trump] has taken office, look at the way the capital markets have responded. There appears to be enthusiasm about some elements of the platform that he described during the election cycle. That seems to be fueling anticipatory consumer confidence, and if that trend continues post-inauguration, I think it bodes well for travel and tourism. We're all trying to guess how much of the tariff talk is real, actionable implementation of significant tariffs and how much is an opening salvo in trade negotiations. Until we have more visibility into how that plays out, it's hard to say [how that will impact travel and tourism]. The other thing we look at: In President Trump's first administration, there were some selective travel bans, which would obviously be a headwind for our sector.
This interview was conducted by Arnie Weissmann.