REGIONAL REPORT
Hot Middle East summer
matches hotel performance across the region
Contributed by TAREQ BAGAEEN , HOTSTATS
T
he summer is in full flow , which is a good time to reflect on the hospitality industry . Even better , I can use my own travels as an example of the resilience of travel and how it ’ s impacted hotel performance .
I live in Bangkok with my family — a city that is now bursting at the seams with tourists . For our summer holiday , we made our way to Athens and the Greek Islands where two things were similarly hot : room rates and the climate !
From there , we jetted off to New York City , where taking in the sights will cost you : The cheapest decent room available in the city was well over $ 250 USD with luxury hotels easily pushing north of $ 1,000 USD easy for a standard room . Not to mention , I was there during the premieres of “ Barbie ” and “ Oppenheimer ”— I swear that the city was turning pink everywhere I looked .
After the Big Apple , we popped up to Toronto and relaxed in the beautiful Canadian summer where our hotel was once again full , but this time with a major conference on top of a few leisure travelers .
The last leg on our Emirates route was a five-day pit-stop in Dubai to recover from jet lag and work on our tan before visiting family in the Levant . I had anticipated Dubai would be a ghost town ; that is what is expected in the GCC ( Gulf Countries Council ) in summer . I was incorrect .
82 hotelsmag . com September 2023