Hotels see RevPAR rise in January

Russian tourists’ jump fuels first year-on-year rise since 2014

Hotels across Dubai recorded a positive yearover-year performance in January, and this is thanks in part to the huge increase in Russian tourists and slowdown in supply growth.

According to the preliminary data released by STR, the average hotel occupancy rate in the city rose by 1.5 per cent to 86.4 per cent, while room supply was up only by 3.6 per cent in January 2018.

The cost of overnight stay in the city, or average daily rate (ADR), was down slightly by -0.6 per cent to Dh814.51, but the revenue per available room (RevPAR) was up by 1 per cent to Dh703.89, the first January increase in four years. “Dubai saw its first January increase in RevPAR (revenue per available room) since 2014,” market research firm STR said yesterday. RevPAR is one of the most important indicators of health among hotels.

Official data released by Dubai Tourism showed that most of Dubai’s tourists are Indians, Saudis and British, although the number of Russian travellers has recently spiked, registering a whopping 121 per cent increase in 2017 over 2016.

According to STR, the high demand from visitors “was enough to outpace somewhat slowing supply growth and push a positive occupancy comparison.”

STR noted that the high demand was aided by “a fastrebounding Russia source market, especially in beachfront properties.”

Dubai recorded a total of 15.79 million tourists visiting last year, up by 6.2 per cent from 2016. The majority of the visitors came from India, which accounted for 2.1 million guests, followed by Saudi Arabia (1.53 million) and the UK (1.27 million) in the top three.