Dubai hospitality sector to see addition of 29,200 keys

STR data for October indicates there were 29,226 rooms in the pipeline across 95 hotels in Dubai, accounting for 30.3 per cent of the existing supply of 96,340 keys. - AFP

By Waheed Abbas

Published: Thu 16 Nov 2017, 8:51 PM

Last updated: Thu 16 Nov 2017, 10:57 PM

Dubai will see a major supply of hotel keys in coming years the emirate has the highest number of rooms under contract at the end of October followed by the holy city of Makkah in Saudi Arabia in the Middle East and Africa region.
According to STR's data for October, there were 29,226 rooms in the pipeline across 95 hotels in Dubai, accounting for 30.3 per cent of the existing supply of 96,340 keys. Makkah has 18 projects in the pipeline which will add 23,791 rooms, taking its tally to 31,149 keys.
Under contract projects include those in the construction and planning stages but does not include projects in the unconfirmed stage.
Dubai Tourism figures released earlier this month showed that the number of hotel rooms in the emirate stood at 106,167 spread across 678 establishments in September 2017, an aggregated 6 per cent increase as compared to September-end 2016.
Luxury five-star hotels made up 33 per cent of the emirate's total inventory, with four-star hotels commanding a 23 per cent share and properties in the one- to three-star categories a share of 21 per cent. According to STR, the other three cities that made into the top five ranking are the regional capitals of Doha, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.
The data showed that 8,878 rooms are under contract across 38 projects in the Qatari capital, accounting for 80.4 per cent of the existing supply of 11,038 rooms. Riyadh will likely to have 29 more hotel projects, adding 6,349 rooms, which will account for 50 per cent of its existing supply. While the UAE capital has 12 hospitality projects under contract to add 4,124 keys, accounting for 15.5 per cent of its supply.
STR earlier said demand outpaced the supply in Abu Dhabi hospitality industry in October, driven by World Skills event and the upswing in the tourist arrivals. Average daily rate increased 2.3 per cent to Dh465.58 and revenue per available room witnessed 15.3 per cent growth to Dh376.88.
Overall, 166,774 rooms in 580 hotel projects are under contract in the Middle East and 55,094 rooms in 299 projects in Africa. - waheedabbas@khaleejtimes.com