Ernst and Young’s Middle East Hotel Benchmark Survey revealed that Beirut’s hotel occupancy rate improved by 10 percentage points (pp) year-on-year (y-o-y) to stand at 59% in October 2014. This was coupled with a 20.3% yearly rise in Revenue per Average Room (RevPAR) to $100 and a slight increase in Average Room Rate of 0.6% to $169.
Over the first 10 months of 2014, Lebanon’s occupancy rate has declined marginally by 1 pp to 51%. ARR and RevPAR also dropped by 3.6% and 5.8% to respective values of $163 and $83.
Regionally, Cairo (Egypt) continued its substantial growth, in the month of October, with a 31 pp y-o-y jump in its occupancy rate to 50%, and an increase in ARR by 55.8% y-o-y to $112. Consequently, RevPAR has leapt from $14 to $56.
In contrast, Makkah was the worst performer in the region for October after the end of the high tourism season, where its occupancy rate fell by 23 pp to 42%. The 4.7% drop in ARR to $314 lead to a 39.1% fall in RevPAR to $132.