Dubai reaches 100,000 hotel room milestone
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Dubai has surpassed a milestone of 100,000 hotels rooms, Dubai Tourism officials have revealed.
The figure was reached following the opening of the Westin Dubai Al Habtoor City in August, which added 1,004 guest rooms to the city’s inventory, 142 of which were suites.
“For the hotel sector, high demand from international travellers, and the consequent growth in tourism volumes, has been the cornerstone of fostering continued investment in supply enhancement, which has seen us cross this historic 100,000 rooms threshold. This has been a journey undertaken collaboratively and achieved through the enduring strength of our public and private partnerships that underscore Dubai’s maturing prominence on the world stage,” said His Excellency Helal Saeed Almarri, director general of Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (Dubai Tourism).
He was speaking at an official event to mark the historic 100,000-room milestone, which was also attended by Mohammed Khalaf Al Habtoor, vice chairman and CEO of Al Habtoor Group, together with Marriott International’s Alex Kyriakidis, president and managing director Middle East and Africa, and Guido de Wilde, chief operating officer Middle East.
The quality and high standards of Dubai’s hotel industry have long been a defining characteristic of the city’s tourism offering and a contributor to the destination’s overall attractiveness to visitors. The new Westin hotel – the second Westin-branded property to open in the city – is no exception and confirms the importance the industry places on providing guests with a truly exceptional, superlative experience. This is also reflected in the latest MasterCard Global Destination Cities Index report, which ranks Dubai as the fourth most visited city in the world as well, as the number one city for international overnight visitor spend
Dubai Tourism said it expected room nights in the emirate’s hotels and hotel apartments to reached 35.9 million by the end of 2018, representing a compound annual growth rate of 10.8% from the end of 2015.
The emirate is expected to have 134,000 hotel rooms by the end of 2018 with occupancy of 77% forecast, it said.
DTCM also predicted an increase in international overnight visitors through local carriers Emirates and flydubai and an increase in the average length of guest stay to four days.
“The hotel and hospitality sector continues to share strong interdependencies and complementarities with the growth of tourism, aviation, infrastructure and other destination proposition enhancements, as it has done historically,” said Almarri.
“The concerted efforts of Dubai Government to continually evolve the emirate’s transport and logistics infrastructure via committed investments for capacity expansion through to 2020, coupled with Dubai Tourism’s enablement of various tourism assets, ranging from theme parks and cultural districts to specialised event venues and entertainment offerings, have laid stable foundations to systematically grow visitation volumes to the city in line with 2020 targets. As such, they also prudently influence development plans for the hotel sector.”
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