Dubai: The Middle East and Africa has 637 hotels under contract, with 151, 205 rooms, according to STR Global’s September 2014 Construction Pipeline Report, published on Thursday.
The region saw 139 hotels, with 33,232 rooms, open year-to-date, according to the global research firm. It expects 82 hotels, with 18, 538 rooms, to open in the remainder of the year.
Most of the rooms are expected to be added in the upper upscale segment (5,419 rooms in 18 hotels), followed by the unaffiliated, upscale and luxury segments.
By 2015, 145 hotels, with 32,271 rooms, are due to open in the region. An additional 38 hotels, with 12,516 rooms, are expected to be in the upper upscale segment — the largest addition of rooms — followed by the luxury and upscale segments.
In the UAE, a number of hotels have opened in 2014, such as the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel and Residences in Al Barsha-Dubai, Sofitel Dubai Downtown and Holiday Inn Abu Dhabi Downtown.
In Dubai, more than 7,000 rooms have been added in the emirate since June last year, bringing the total number to 88,680 across 634 properties, according to data by Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing.
