From the various indexes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...iate_employees
I don't like ECA since they do not include housing. From Mercer and the Economist Intelligence unit I tend to like the former; EIU kind of misses the fact that Moscow and Luanda housing are just so expensive while Mercer is spot on. Sadly, I haven't bought their report for $700 - http://www.mercer.com/articles/cost-of-living-2012 - though I would be interested not only in their top and bottom 10 but especially in between. I don not need the full $700 report but only the list of countries with relative index numbers would be insightful.

What would be really helpful or insightful for me is a hotel price index like hotels of comparable quality and comfort cost 100 in reference city, 110 in city A, 90, in city B, you get the idea. The Hotels.com Hotel Price Index is somehow misses the point for that - http://gb.hotels.com/hotel-price-index/

<< That is the main question in my post. Some useful ballpark index number of hotels, short stay apartments by region.

Off:
Also worth considering real estate purchase/rent vs. hotel prices in a city, though hotel prices tend to be more uniform across (some) developed and (some) developing countries. For real estate buy vs. rent prices I read a ratio of 100 somewhere I forgot: base price for a monthly rental is 100thof the purchase price, but this can move up or down subject to many factors, the business cycle, inventory and location. I am not a real estate tycoon but if you have some good info on these, pls. do not hesitate to share with me!

In general all I know about real estate is...
http://www.google.com/search?q=real+...bad+investment
unless you are a real estate expert of course.

There is also Numbeo's http://www.numbeo.com/hotel-prices/rankings.jsp which frankly I did not find that useful.