Oman hotels: back to the pack

But with Gonu significantly impacting the Omani capital’s infrastructure, and some properties, results from this month’s HotelBenchmark Survey show occupancy well down from the previous month, at 49.8% in June compared with 67% in May.

While this result was only a small decrease of 2.8% compared with last year’s result for June, the impact was also felt on RevPAR, which was posted at $77, well down from $128 in May.

The average room rate of $155 was down from May’s figure of $191, but compared with the same period last year it represented a boost in performance of 29.4%.

On an annual comparison basis Muscat’s RevPAR growth of 25.8%, compared with the same month last year, put it in a cluster of four cities that posted RevPAR growth of more than 20%. Amman’s RevPAR grew 20.3% to $74, Cairo was up 27.5% to $67, and Riyadh’s result of $160 was a 26.5% increase compared with last year’s result.

Doha was the only city to post a negative result, down 7.6% to $125, driven by a drop of 7.4% in occupancy to 64.5%, and Dubai was knocked off the top perch in terms of absolute values by Riyadh, with a result of $155 – still a 17.8% improvement on last year’s result.

In the year-to-date category Dubai was well out in front for the RevPAR category in terms of absolute values, with the result of $249 well above next best Doha’s result of $179.

Dubai’s year to date growth of 16.1% has been driven by a modest increase in occupancy – up 2.2% to 86.4% – and double-digit growth in the average room rate to $288.

Riyadh continued it’s spectacular performance in the year-to-date category, with occupancy up 2% to 80.4%, the average room rate jumping 37.5% to $212 and RevPAR growing 40.3% to $170.

However, the Qatari capital continues to lag, with more hotels coming online since the Asian Games: occupancy is down 2.6% to 76.9%, average room rate has eased 1.1% to $232 and RevPAR is slightly lower compared with the same period last year, down 3.6% to $179.