The organisers of Arabian Hotel Investment Conference (AHIC) shared exclusive data from Colliers International, HVS, and Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) on the last day of the event, which took place from 26 – 28 April at Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai.
While Colliers International presented performance data from 29 submarkets in the Middle East, HVS Dubai revealed detailed performance updates from Abu Dhabi, Amman, Cairo, Doha, Dubai, Kuwait City, Manama, Muscat and Riyadh.
Meanwhile, Scott Antel, partner, head of hospitality and leisure, Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP (BLP) revealed results of a hotel industry survey completed in March 2016.
Jonathan Worsley, chairman of Bench Events and co-founder of AHIC said: “AHIC is the leading event for hotel investment in the Middle East and we are dedicated to providing the most current and relevant insights from our industry.
“From our annual business briefings to get qualitative data from leading professionals to data sourced and presented from the most specialised companies, we are confident that all our delegates and sponsors gain beneficial information from our event and have done for the past 11 years.”
Colliers International’s research showed that leading the RevPAR forecast for 2016 is Palm Jumeirah, Dubai (USD $339), followed by Dubai Marina and JBR, Dubai (USD $211) and then Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (USD $174).
Comparing the annual RevPAR from 2015 to the forecast for 2016, the year on year variance for the top three performing markets are Cairo, Egypt (+12%), Alexandria, Egypt (+11%) and Manama, Bahrain (+4%).
The highest positive forecasts for occupancy variance in 2016 is Fujairah (+13%) followed by Ras al Khaimah (+11%) and then Cairo, Egypt (+10%).
The HVS research showed that in 2015 Ajman had the highest occupancy levels, whil the highest average room rates were achieved in Riyadh, Kuwait City and Jeddah, albeit at the expense of lower occupancy rates.
The most lucrative hotel markets in 2015 were Dubai, Jeddah and Muscat, managing to secure the highest regional RevPAR at USD $180, USD $172 and USD $140, respectively.
Hotel operators are expecting to release a further 100,000 rooms between 2016 and 2020, of which, 18,000 rooms are scheduled for this year (2016).
The findings from BLP were based on data received from 200 respondents who represent a cross-section of hotel industry professionals in more than 25 countries.
Some of the key findings show that Dubai is considered the best value in terms of hotel investment/development and 43% believe that RevPAR will grow in MENA.
Franchising and management is considered the most popular growth model for hotel brands, according to the research, and 65% of respondents felt that brands would have more negotiating power with MENA hotel owners post consolidation.
