Travel, Tourism & Hospitality

Best August for Abu Dhabi hotels; guest numbers up 22pc

Abu Dhabi hotels have recorded the best August guest arrivals to date with the number of people checking into the UAE emirate’s hotels rising 22 per cent, compared to the same month last year.

According to figures just released by Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority (TCA Abu Dhabi), 306,890 guests stayed in Abu Dhabi’s 156 hotels and hotel apartments last August, delivering 877,819 guest nights – a 24 per cent rise year-on-year. The average guest length of stay nudged up 1 per cent to 2.86 nights.

“We are much encouraged by the August results, with hotel occupancy for the month achieving 70 per cent, which is up by 11 per cent on last year,” said Jasem Al Darmaki, acting director general, TCA Abu Dhabi. “And this has to be judged alongside the fact that we have more hotels to fill this year than last.

“Significantly, our top international source market in August was Saudi Arabia. Some 20,977 guests from the kingdom stayed with us last August which was an increase of 41 per cent on August last year.”

Abu Dhabi has 10 more hotels than this time last year with an additional 2,495 rooms in the market.

Hotel revenues for August rose 19 per cent to Dh401 million ($109 million) with food and beverage accounting for Dh143 million ($39 million), a 14 per cent increase year-on-year.

“Summer this year has seen a host of entertainment events in Abu Dhabi which, together with a very affordable room rate of Dh352 ($96) could well have influenced the uplift,” said Al Darmaki. “We are already planning for Abu Dhabi Summer Season 2015 with the aim of taking our product much earlier to market.”

The August performance has taken Abu Dhabi’s hotel guest arrivals for the first eight months of the year to 2.2 million, which is 27 per cent increase on the corresponding period last year. Year-on-year guest nights rose 22 per cent to 6.67 million with hotel occupancy lifting 8 per cent to 73 per cent though average length of stay dipped 4 per cent to just over three nights.

“We’re heading in the right direction although still have the issue of slipping length-of-stay to successfully address. We are focusing our marketing and promotional campaigns heavily on the message of  an expansive offering while, at the same time, looking at new markets – such as Azerbaijan, with Etihad Airways planning to launch services from the Azeri capital Baku next year,” added Al Darmaki.

TCA Abu Dhabi included Baku in its recent CIS roadshow – the first time the authority and its stakeholders have sold into the Azerbaijan market.

Year-on-year Abu Dhabi’s hotel revenues climbed 15 per cent to Dh3.8 billion ($1 billion) with food and beverage (F&B) revenues jumping 12 per cent to Dh1.5 billion ($395 million).

“We are now quite confident of attaining our 2014 hotel guest target of 3.2 million given we have before us an extremely busy Q4 with the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Abu Dhabi Art, National Day celebrations, the ISAF Sailing World Cup, Abu Dhabi Classics and the year-end hosting of the Volvo Ocean Race fleet and three weeks of celebration around it,” added Al Darmaki.

India remains Abu Dhabi’s leading overseas source market for hotel guests with 142,613 Indians checking into the emirate in the first eight months of this year – a 33 per cent rise on the same period last year. In all, the Indian guests delivered 533,181 guest nights, which was a 16 per cent growth and they stayed, on average, 3.8 nights.

“We believe we can make further inroad into the Indian market with Etihad Airways planning to fly daily to Abu Dhabi from Kolkata next February,” said Al Darmaki. - TradeArabia News Service