Dubai:
The UAE is the top country in the Middle East and Africa with ongoing hotel projects, followed by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Morocco, according to TOPHOTELPROJECTS, a leading provider for global B2B hotel data.
Caroline List, International sales manager at TOPHOTELPROJECTS, said the UAE has 170 ongoing projects with 63,790 rooms. Out of this, Dubai has 119 projects and Abu Dhabi has 26 projects.
Saudi Arabia has 126 projects with 48,256 rooms, while Turkey has 73 projects with 12,624 rooms.
A record total of 872 hotel projects are currently underway in the Middle East and Africa, set to add 243,036 rooms to the market over the coming years, the majority before 2020.
In the Middle East, List said that 546 projects with 166,036 rooms are underway and 326 projects in Africa with 77,000 rooms.
Christine Davidson, event director of The Hotel Show Dubai, said that the busiest year for Dubai hotels is reported to be 2017, with 30 projects opening to the public.
Dubai’s first fully solar-powered hotel, Hotel Indigo Dubai at The Sustainable City, and its first Mandarin Oriental and Bulgari luxury hotels are to open in 2017. The major Dubai Pearl development, a “mix of six innovative 5-Star hotels” is reported to launch in early-2018 including Dubai’s first MGM Grand and Bellagio hotels, brands made famous by the Las Vegas strip.
“Hotel and leisure development, build and investment is significant and set to continue, making Dubai the perfect contract market for global suppliers and investors,” Davidson added.
