Nine per cent growth in guests; Hotel average room rate (ARR) rise seven per cent to AED655

Revenues increase by 24 percent

Guestnights rise 22 percent; Average length of stay gets 12 percent boost

The Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing has announced the key performance indicators of the emirate’s rapidly-expanding Dubai hotels industry for the first quarter of 2012 which showed a nine per cent increase in guest numbers, 24 per cent increase in revenues, 22 per cent jump in guestnights and a 12 percent rise in the average length of stay.

The impressive January-March 2012 results caps the stellar performance posted by the hotels in Dubai last year with revenues touching an all-time high of AED16 billion and 10 per cent increase in the guest numbers which crossed the nine million mark.

In January 2012, Dubai ranked number one on the STR Global’s hotel occupancy list with 86.2 percent level, up from ninth place a year earlier, higher than in Tokyo, Paris or New York.

Announcing the results at Arabian Travel Market (ATM-2012), Mr. Khalid A bin Sulayem, DTCM Director General, said: “ The remarkable results of our hospitality industry is the outcome of the substantial expansion of the tourist infrastructure, an increasingly impressive portfolio of tourism products, wider destination awareness, aggressive promotional and marketing drive and the growing air-connectivity to and from Dubai. The iconic Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF) also contributed enormously towards this feat.”

During Q1 2012, Dubai hotels and hotel apartments played host to nearly 2.6 million guests, an increase of nine percent over the corresponding period last year.

Similarly, the guestnights swelled by 22 per cent to touch 10.35 million, while the revenues recorded 24 per cent increase to more than AED5.38 billion.

The number of Dubai hotels increased by one per cent to reach 577 with the total number of rooms and flats swelling four per cent to 75171.

Hotel room occupancy rate stood at 87 per cent, an increase of eight per cent while it was 84 per cent occupancy for the apartment flat, a five per cent increase.

However, the apartment average room rate witnessed 12 per cent increase to reach AED 448 while the hotel average room rate was AED655, an increase of seven per cent.

In terms of market performance, Saudi Arabia topped the Top 20 Source Market List with 272,631 guests, thereby consolidating Dubai’s position in the intra-Gulf tourism business landscape. India notched up second position with 207,774 guests followed by the UK and the US with 174,922 and 129,978 guests, respectively. Russia ranked fifth with 109,219 guests.

The other top performers were Iran (106,352), Germany (99,065), Kuwait (70,399), China (66,926), Oman (65,779), Pakistan (62,234), France (48,347), Egypt (45,696), Qatar (40,804), Australia (36,307), Italy (32,477), Jordan (27,526), Netherlands (26,750), Philippines (26,509) and Lebanon (24,771).