According to Ernst & Young Middle East hotel benchmark survey, the occupancy rate in Beirut’s 4- and 5-star hotels reached 33% by May 2021, up from last year’s registered 19% during the same period.
On a monthly performance, Beirut occupancy rate recorded an uptick of 45.1 percentage point (pp) in May 2021, compared to the same period last year, to reach 50% in May 2021. Furthermore, the average room rate has increased by 318.2% from $77 in May 2020 to $324 in May 2021, which led to an upsurge in RevPAR (Revenue per available room) growth of 4,243.6% during the same period; from $4 to $162 in May 2021. Important to mention, that the increase is inflated by valuing the room rates at the official exchange rate of LBP 1,500 for USD.
On a regional level, the occupancy rates in Dubai overall increased by 10.9% year-to-date (YTD) to 60%. By the same token, the Average room rate and Room yields both increased by 17% and 42.8% to stand at $255 and $154, respectively by May 2021.
In turn, in KSA, Madinah’s hotel occupancy rate decreased by 10.3% and average room rate decreased by only 4.5% to $111 by May 2021. Moreover, the Average room rate increased by 96.3% to $208 for Makkah city. To note, Makkah’s hotel industry showed improved performance with the return of Umrah this year strictly for vaccinated or COVID-recovered pilgrims only.
Moreover, in Amman, occupancy rate dropped by 19% to 17% by May 2021, average room rate decreased by 4.9% to reach $115 per night and room yield decreased by 54.9% to $20.
It is worth mentioning that Beirut recorded the third lowest average occupancy rate of 33% over the first five months of 2021, compared to the other nine Middle Eastern capitals studied in the report. This is mainly explained by the lockdown measures that were taken during the first 2-3 months of the year. We visualize that future data might show better results as the hospitality sector observed a high booking rate during the summer season.
Occupancy Rates in Beirut’s 4&5-Star Hotels by May
