Dubai: The UAE should not grow too comfortable in relying on the Arab Spring tourism spillover because it is a short-term effect, a hospitality consultant told Gulf News.
"As a market going forward, we shouldn't get too excited about the effect of the Arab Spring on markets like Dubai. I think it would be dangerous to think we could be here in a year or two seeing the same performance levels, I don't think that's going to happen, again coming back to the volume of supply coming into the market," said Gavin Samson, managing director of Christie & Co Mena.
The UAE is already leading the region with 2,808 branded budget hotel rooms in the pipeline by 2015, according to a new study released by Christie & Co Mena.
It is followed by Saudi Arabia with 1,690 rooms, Bahrain with 578, Qatar with 420 rooms and Oman with 248 rooms.
Diversify
Although home to the Burj Al Arab and an array of other upmarket hotels, the UAE is rolling out budget and mid-scale hotels to diversify its product offering. "It's the tourism and business centre of the Gulf… it's the most developed one in the region for sure where you get a concentration of corporate and leisure demand. Particularly in Dubai, you're going to get the hotel market broadening this appeal in terms of asset clients, especially that the GCC is associated with five-star. When it matures it becomes more flexible as the market develops," he said. Driving this expansion is the need for affordable hotel accommodation that appeals to a wider segment of travellers and the increase in budget airlines that facilitates affordable travel, said Samson.
More demand will be coming in from China, Korea and India to the UAE that is targeting Asian source markets, he added.
Room rates in Dubai will not recover to 2008 levels and will likely witness slow growth going forward with the huge supply pipeline across the region, he said.
Samson added that for the Arab Spring countries to recover their tourism performance, local and regional investors must kickstart and back up their projects in these countries before foreign investments can come in.
