Beirut, once nicknamed the “The Paris of the Middle East”, suffered in the previous years because of persistent political deadlocks and ongoing unrest in the region. The 6% y-o-y increment to 1.35M in tourist numbers, that followed a very poor base reached in 2013, was also reflected in the inactiveness in the hospitality industry. As of the end of 2014, Beirut ranked lowly at 52% (within the bottom 3 countries in the Arab world) in-terms of occupancy rate, same level as that of 2013. Even though the poorest performer was Egypt with a staggering 35%; there was some room for optimism for Egyptian Hoteliers as the occupancy rate grew 9 percentage points (p.p.) from 2013 mainly due to improving political and security situations. Albeit, Dubai experienced a decline in occupancy rate of 2.3 p.p. to 79.7%, it’s still the biggest winner in the region. With respect to revenue per available room (RevPar) and average daily rate (ADR), Beirut showed yearly decrease of 2.8% and 2.7% to $86 and $165 respectively. On the other hand, Cairo achieved a respective 53.1% and 15% y-o-y increase to $33 and $93, which mirrored the push upwards in demand for Hotel reservations. Not surprisingly, Dubai remains fixed on its perch as the highest RevPar and ADR, with respective quotes of $218 and $275. Focusing on the changes in the occupancy rate during end of year holidays between 2013 and 2014, Beirut pushed from 53% in December 2013 to 61%, witnessing an 8 p.p. yearly increase. With that surge came an upturn in the RevPar of 19.3% to $116, while a 3.5% growth on ADR to $189 USD was observed.