Travel market opens as Dubai hotel capacity jump exceeds revenue rise
Posted on 04 May 2010 with no comments from readers
The Arabian Travel Market opens today in Dubai, the largest regional travel exhibition. This year there is a greater participation from Arabian and Lebanese exhibitors but the overall size of this show is similar to 2009 in terms of space and participants.
Official figures show a recovery in the Dubai tourism sector in the first quarter. But the 3.3 per cent rise in total hotel revenues failed to keep pace with a 13 per cent expansion in total hotel rooms and apartments.
Q1 recovery in tourism
Guest numbers rose by 5.1 per cent against the first quarter of last year to two million in Q1 2010, and total guest nights were up 16.9 per cent with the average stay increasing from 2.68 to 2.98 nights.
However, ArabianMoney has some concern over the way these official statistics have been compiled. The full year figures for 2009 show a one per cent rise in guests over 2008 to 7.6 million, admittedly a slowdown on eight per cent growth in 2008.
But are we really to believe that the Dubai hospitality sector was growing last year in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and local real estate crash? It certainly does not tally with the complaints from hoteliers about low occupancy and empty rooms at the time.
Strange too that official occupancy levels fell from 82 to 70 per cent last year and yet the total number of guests staying in Dubai was up on the boom year 2008.
Statistical games
The official figures also claim that the actual number of hotels only grew from 351 to 352 last year, so that does not explain the discrepancy. The jump in new hotel rooms came only in the first quarter, up from 40,984 a year ago to 46,022 rooms. Again we recall more new hotels opening last year.
Statistical screen shifting aside it has to be acknowledged that Dubai hotels have enjoyed something of a recovery in the first quarter. Indeed, it is almost certainly better than the figures here can demonstrate because they appear to be overstating the strength of the hotel sector in Q1 2009. You cannot have your cake and eat it with numbers.
Whether this recent improvement in the outlook – which anecdotal evidence suggests is replicated in other regional tourism markets – can be sustained is another thing. If the global economy, and in particularly the key European and UK markets are about to go in to a double dip recession then that will be challenging.
