According to the latest report published by Ernst & Young, Beirut’s hotel occupancy rate rose by 1.4 percentage points from 63.7% in 2017 to 65.1% in 2018. The average room rate (ARR) of Beirut’s 4 and 5 star hotels rose by 2.3% from 184 in 2017 to 188 in 2018.Following the same trend, the room’s yield or Revenue per available room (RevPAR) witnessed a yearly increase by 4.5% to $122 in 2018.
Regionally, on a yearly basis, the performance of Cairo’s market hotels was positive with an increase in Occupancy, ARR, and in Rooms yield by 7.6 percentage points, 9.8%, and 22.5% respectively to 73.00%, $105 and $77 in 2018. The EY reports attributed the increase in Cairo’s hospitality sector performance to the country’s improved political stability, lift of flight bans to Egypt and focused efforts on tourism marketing and campaigns globally.
Worth mentioning, that Jeddah’s hospitality market observed a slight drop in occupancy by 0.7% points while the ARR was up by 9.5% to $284 in 2018, which resulted in an overall RevPAR growth of 8.2% to $166 in 2018. In fact, this growth can be linked to the new projects that have been executed in Jeddah lately, such as the Jeddah Opera House, the expansion of cinemas and cultural centers, also to the events that took place such as Jeddah Summer Festival, Saudi National Day celebrations which are expected to further strengthen the sector in the upcoming period.
On the contrary, the worst performer of the region in 2018 in hotel occupancy rate was Muscat, seeing a drop in all KPIs, starting with hotel occupancy by 10.4 percentage points to 57.2% in 2018 that resulted in an annual drop in the ARR and the RevPAR by 14.6% and 27.7% respectively. According to EY, this may be due to the increase in supply in the market.
However, in the month of December alone, a positive performance was observed in Beirut’s occupancy rate .In details, the 14.5% progress in the number of tourists that attained 162,506 in December 2018 positively affected occupancy rate that rose by 16.6% to 69.7%, also the ARR and RevPar that increased by 11.8% and 46.7% respectively to $211 and $147.
Kuwait’s hospitality market was the worst performer in the month of December 2018, witnessing a significant drop in all KPIs, starting from occupancy levels, to ARR and RevPar by 14.3%, 7.9% and 26.0% to 58.0% , $55 and $32.
Monthly Occupancy Rates in Beirut’s 4- and 5- star Hotels
Source: EY Middle East Hotel Benchmark Survey