MEA Hotel Occupancy Up By 13.1% in September

The Middle East/Africa region reported positive performance during September with a 13.1 per cent increase in occupancy to 65.5 per cent, a 1.3% increase in ADR (Average Daily Rate) to $145.12 and a 14.5% increase in RevPAR to $94.99, according to STR Global Data.

Elizabeth Winkle, managing director of STR Global said that “It is positive to see consistency in performance in spite of instability leading to uncertainty in certain countries.”

“Amongst the high performers, Saudi Arabia is one of the region's strongest in September as the country was gearing up for Hajj, which took place the first week in October”, said Winkle. “Cairo, whilst still in recovery mode, achieved occupancy levels of 51.8 percent with significant year-over-year growth of 107.5 percent”.

Some of the key trends from the regional key markets for September 2014 include:

• Egypt recorded 138.3% increase in occupancy to 60.8 %, and a 15.6% increase in ADR to EGP 523.76 and a whopping 175.4% increase in RevPAR to EGP 318.49.

• Saudi Arabia reported an increase of 26.7 % in Occupancy to 66.3%, a 28.1 per cent increase in ADR to SAR 858.62, and a notable increase of 62.3% in RevPAR to SAR569.12

• In UAE, Occupancy decrease by 0.1% to 72.9 %, ADR was down by 3.3% to AED 575.83, and RevPAR decreased by 3.4% to AED 419.85.

Four markets achieved double-digit or more RevPAR growth: Cairo (+133.9% to $55.82); Beirut (+68% to $82.99); Jeddah (+21.9% to $216.34); and Doha, Qatar (+12.2% to $127.50). 

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637 Hotels Under Contract in MENA

The Middle East and Africa has 637 hotels under contract, with 151,205 rooms, according to STR Global’s September construction pipeline report.

139 hotels opened year to date, with 33,232 rooms in the region, according to the global research firm. It expects 82 hotels, with 18,538 hotels to open in the remainder of 2014.

The most rooms are planned to be added in the upper scale segment (5419 in 18 hotels), followed by the unaffiliated segment (4626 rooms in 22 hotels), the upscale segment (3,531 rooms in 13 hotels) and the luxury segment (3480 rooms in 150 hotels).

By 2015, 145 hotels, with 32,271 rooms are due to open in the region. The upper upscale segment is expecting to add the largest addition of rooms. i.e. 38 hotels with 12,516 rooms, followed by the luxury segment (26 hotels with 5,318 hotels) and the upper segment (31 hotels, with 5,024 rooms)

A number of hotels have opened in the UAE, in 2014, such as the Double Tree by Hilton Hotel and Residences in Al Barsha-Dubai, Sofitel Downtown and Holiday Inn Abu Dhabi downtown.

According to the data provided by the Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing, more than 7000 rooms were added in Dubai since June last year bringing the total to number to 88,680 rooms across 634 properties.

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