According to Ernst & Young Middle East hotel benchmark survey, the occupancy rate in Beirut’s 4- and 5-star hotels reached 42.3 percentage points (pp) by December 2021, up from last year’s registered 17.5% during the same period.
On a monthly performance, Beirut occupancy rate recorded a downtick of 0.7% in December 2021 from December last year, to reach 40.2%. Furthermore, the average room rate has increased by 485.4% from 324,966 Lebanese pounds in December 2020 to reach 1,902,289 Lebanese pounds in December 2021, equivalent to drop of 66.2 % in USD; 217$ in December 2020 to 73$ in December 2021 at the parallel market rate.
As such, RevPAR (Revenue per available room) surged by 475.6% in LBP during the same period; 132,742 Lebanese pounds in December 2020 to 764,030 Lebanese pounds in December 2021, equivalent to drop of 66.8% in USD from 88$ in December 2020 to 29$ in December 2021.
On a regional level, the occupancy rates in Dubai overall increased by 19.1% year-to-date (YTD) to 63.8%. By the same token, the Average room rate and Room yields both increased by 32.7% and 89.3% to stand at $272 and $173, respectively by October 2021.
In turn, in KSA, Riyadh’s hotel occupancy rate increased by 8.6% to reach 58.7% by December 2021, and average room rate decreased by 0.9% to $139 by December 2021. However, for Makkah city, the Average room rate increased by 32% to $140.
Moreover, in Amman, occupancy rate added 5.5% to reach 31.8% by December 2021, average room rate increased by 24.1% to reach $135 per night; moreover room yield progressed by 50.1% to $43.
Source: EY, BlomInvest