Abu Dhabi leads world on hotel rates rise - survey

ROOM RATES: Abu Dhabi is leading the way with hotel rate increases in Q1, according to a new survey. (Getty Images)

Abu Dhabi is leading the world when it comes to bucking the downturn in the global tourism industry, a new survey shows.

A survey of more than 92,000 room night bookings across the world during the first quarter of 2009 has revealed that the UAE capital showed the largest increase in hotel room rates.

On average, its year-on-year rates rose by more than 33 percent, compared to its neighbour Dubai which recorded a room rate decrease of 25 percent, the survey by US travel management company Ovation Travel Group showed.

The report said in the first quarter of 2009, three, four and five-star hotels across the world lowered their rates by an average of 17.4 percent compared with the first quarter of 2008.

The survey, which polled 30 US and international destinations, showed that 26 of them showed room rate decreases, with Singapore cutting prices by 35 percent as the impact of the global crisis on travel plans continued to bite.

As well as Abu Dhabi, only Dublin (6.2 percent), Milan (5.1 percent) and Tokyo (3.2 percent) showed rises in hotel room rates.

Ten destinations, including Dubai, Delhi, Hong Kong, London, Mumbai, New York, and Singapore showed year-over-year decreases of more than 20 percent.

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READERS' COMMENTS

Are You For Real?
Posted by The Analyst on Thursday 23 April 2009 at 03:22 UAE time


First of all it's absolutely not in their best interest to continue their increasing of rates. Secondly if Dubai's hospitality is crumbling, I don't buy for one second that anyone would pay those higher rates, to stay an hour south in Abu Dhabi, with limited activities as compared to Dubai. It's 100% "SPIN CONTROL". We know that tourism is way down in Abu Dhabi, if it's down in Dubai and the world, it's down there also.
As quoted from another article on the hospitality industry : Arthur de Haast, chief executive of Jones Lang LaSalle's hotel unit said oversupply and falling demand was likely to weaken hotel performance this year.

"Overall the performance of hotels will decline in 2009 and will probably at best stabilise in 2010 and we won't see recovery in growth until probably 2011," said de Haast.

This is at best for areas that have always lured travellers like London, New York, Barcelona, Paris, Athens, Sydney, etc.
Cheers!

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