Hotel Industry in the Middle East and Africa Region Ends 2011 With Mostly Negative Results

The Middle East/Africa region reported mostly negative performance results in 2011 when reported in U.S. dollars, according to data compiled by STR Global.

In 2011, the region reported a 6.8-percent decrease in occupancy to 57.1 percent, a 5.3-percent increase in average daily rate to US$162.81 and a 1.8-percent decrease in revenue per available room to US$92.99.

“Due to the Arab Spring starting early 2011 across Northern Africa, the performances between Africa and the Middle East differ greatly”, said Elizabeth Randall, managing director of STR Global. “Africa reported declining occupancy for all months in 2011, with average room rates declining throughout the latter half of the year. The Africa results were further impacted by supply increases in South Africa and the FIFA World Cup in 2010”. 

“The Middle East reported occupancy and average-room-rate improvements driven from the strong demand growth (+9.0 percent), the highest growth rate for the global regions, and the highest yearly growth achieved since the last seven years”, Randall said. 

Highlights among the region’s key markets for 2011 include (year-over-year comparisons, all currency in U.S. dollars):

• Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, reported the largest growth in occupancy, increasing 9.9 percent to 64.8 percent, followed by Dubai, United Arab Emirates, with a 7.0-percent increase to 75.4 percent.
• Cairo, Egypt, fell 44.9 percent in occupancy to 36.1 percent, posting the largest decrease in that metric, followed by Beirut, Lebanon, with a 12.9-percent decrease to 56.2 percent.
• Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (+6.9 percent to US$203.51), and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (+6.6 percent to US$271.67) reported the largest ADR increases for the year.
• Sandton, South Africa, and surrounding areas, fell 19.5 percent to US$130.41 in ADR, experiencing the largest decrease in that metric.
• Dubai achieved the largest RevPAR increase, jumping 10.7 percent to US$168.64.
• Cairo fell 49.2 percent in RevPAR to US$42.71, reporting the largest decrease for the year. 

Performances of key countries in 2011 (all monetary units in local currency):

*percentages are increases/decreases for 2011 vs. 2010

In December 2011, the region reported a 3.2-percent decrease in occupancy to 56.4 percent, a 4.9-percent increase in ADR to US$175.67 and a 1.5-percent rise in RevPAR to US$99.03.

About STR Global:

STR Global provides clients-including hotel operators, developers, financiers, analysts and suppliers to the hotel industry-access to hotel research with regular and custom reports covering Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia/Pacific and South America. STR Global provides a single source of global hotel data covering daily and monthly performance data, segmentation data, forecasts, annual profitability, pipeline and census information.  Hotel operators can join the surveys on a complimentary basis and benefit from free industry data.  STR Global is part of the STR family of companies and is proudly associated with STR, RRC Associates, STR Analytics and HotelNewsNow.com. For more information, please visit www.strglobal.com.

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