Sharjah Tourism Body Launches New Hospitality Criteria System

Sharjah has launched a new hospitality criteria system in a bid to boost the emirate’s hotel services, according to a top government official. 

Blue Souq

The Emirate is one of the fastest growing tourism markets in the world with world class infrastructure and services contributing to the nation’s economy. A number of new hospitality and tourism projects are in the pipeline, adding to the Sharjah’s growing tourism infrastructure of world-class luxury hotels, beach resort and business tourism facilities in the emirate, said HE Khalid Jasim Al Midfa, Director General, Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development Authority.

Corniche

The main objective of the system is to enhance the Emirates’ hotel services and have the latest technology. The Sharjah Tourism will also introduce new methods of gathering information from Hotel Guests.

The emirate attracted one million guests during the first six months of this year, up 14 per cent over the same period in 2013.

Al Qasba

The hotel occupancy rate was approx 74 per cent during the first half of this year while the average occupancy during the same period last year was at 70 per cent. Guests stayed for 1,87,416 nights during the first half of this year – of those 110,621 nights were at hotels and 711,206 at hotel apartments. While 1,753,866 room nights were occupied during the same period last year.

In the first half this year, Sharjah welcomed 369,485 visitors from GCC countries, which currently accounts for 34 per cent of the total hotel guests. Meanwhile visitors from European nations represented 37 percent of the total hotel guests. Visitors from Asia contributed 13% towards Sharjah Tourism market, while visitors from other Arab nations constituted 12 %. The number of international visitors from America, Africa and Asia Pacific contributed 1 per cent each.

Sharjah is aggressively boosting its presence in the UAE hospitality market, with a portfolio of 106 hotels and hotel apartments at present and could see 30 hotels in the next three years, adding 4000 rooms to the existing 10000 rooms.

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Dubai Hotel Revenues In H1 Top $3billion

The hospitality industry in Dubai benefited from a record number of visitors in H1 and revenue at Hotels in Dubai hit AED12.47 billion (US$3.18 billion). The industry also experienced growth from emerging source markets.

According to figures from Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM), the revenues, for hoteliers and hotel apartment operators was up 10.9% compared with the same period last year, with room revenue up 15.3% and F&B up by 3.8%.

During the first half of the year, a record number of guests checked in across all Hotel establishments with numbers reaching 5,828,449.

Total guest nights went up by 6.7% for hotels and 4.1% for hotel apartments, while the average length of stay increased with an average of 3.9 days. This was split out into 3.4 days at hotels and 5.7 days at hotel apartments.

His Excellency Helal Saeed Almarri, director-general of DTCM, said: “The figures for the first half of 2014 are encouraging and we continue to build on this growth to ensure a successful second half of the year.

“The figures show an increase in visitors from many of our key source markets – for example we are seeing strong growth from China, Brazil, Australia and many countries in Europe.

“The increase comes despite the reduction in flights due to the refurbishment and upgrading of the runways at Dubai International, which is testament to the work conducted by Dubai Airports and our industry partners in ensuring minimal disruption.” 

Saudi Arabia continued to be Dubai’s primary source market, while there was a huge influx of visitors China, up by 26 %. Dubai has added more than 7000 hotel rooms to its inventory up until the end of June, with the total reaching 88,680 across 634 establishments.

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