The airport rt had a buzz to it ; roads were busy ; beach clubs on The Palm were pumping ; and our hotel was offering free drinks at the bar should we choose
to forgo daily housekeeping service . The latter had to do with their environmental policy , but I was told that demand picked up so much that the property was not able to manage the load with their remaining housekeeping crew . It was all quite extraordinary considering the temperature was pushing 45 degrees Celsius and the humidity running close to 95 %.
Dubai is not alone . Many other emirates in the UAE were experiencing a positive summer and , of course , places like Jordan , Lebanon and Egypt typically have their best months between June and September because of tourists and returning expats visiting family during school holidays . A three-hour flight from Qatar to Beirut in August would easily cost the equivalent of a 15-hour trip to South America with the same airline and the same class ; supply and demand in its full glory .
HOT PERFORMANCE Hotels in the summer have been packed : How has the Middle East done YTD ? I ’ ll focus on three key markets from these six countries : KSA ( Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ), UAE ( United Arab Emirates ) and Qatar .
Many people think that the UAE is Dubai and do not understand that it is actually made up of seven distinct emirates , with the capital state being Abu Dhabi . Here is a surprise : Abu Dhabi is almost twice the size of Dubai by land , but Dubai has well over six times the hotel rooms inventory of Abu Dhabi .
The hotel sector YTD has been on par with last year , which is quite remarkable , given how impressive 2022 was and how many experts considered that year to be unmatchable , as it was the first full-rebound , post-COVID year
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Meanwhile , multiple global destinations still struggled to rally and capture share , but the UAE showcased resilience and strong demand across all segments and revenue streams , achieving a rooms gross operating profit margin of more than 81 % and a total GOP margin of 44.5 %, according to HotStats data .
Saudi Arabia ’ s hotel supply is over triple that of Dubai , making it by far the most significant indicator for hotel performance across the whole of the GCC . One might think that Dubai , with its theme parks , free-flowing hard beverages , entertainment venues and more would overmatch the KSA in terms of hotel performance , but it ' s not the case . In every significant metric over the first full half of the year , The Kingdom has been consistently beating the UAE by some margin .
Mohamed Bin Salman , the Crown Prince of Saudi and its de-facto current leader , has pledged $ 1 trillion USD of investment inside the Kingdom to deliver it as a global tourism destination by 2030 . This is a serious marker and they are moving toward it with alacrity : incredible developments , major festivals and conferences , sporting events and much more .
Lastly , Qatar , which is a small , but rich nation that has in the past five years boosted its hotel inventory many times over to be able to host the last World Cup . It now offers more than 30,000 hotel rooms . It was widely speculated that this was a disaster waiting to happen as there would not be sufficient demand to sustain all this supply and , to some extent , it has not been easy sailing , but it has not been all doom and gloom , either . With total GOP margins running at just over 27 % and rooms GOP at over 75 %, Qatar ’ s hotels are finding their place and are well positioned for this yeare and beyond
Overall , the Middle East has been rocking and rolling in 2023 and , most importantly , profitability has been consistent and growing . With significant investment and a clear focus on growing tourism , the future is hot .
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