Abu Dhabi: Just over 4.1 million guests checked into Abu Dhabi’s hotels in 2015, marking an 18 per cent increase over the 3.49 million guests recorded in 2014, according to the emirate’s Tourism and Culture Authority (TCA).
In early 2015, TCA said that an increase in visitors to Abu Dhabi in 2014 prompted the Authority to raise its guest targets for the year from 3.5 million guests to 3.9 million, with 4.1 million being a stretch target. A total of 4,105,846 guest arrivals were recorded in 2015.
The number of hotel guest nights also increased by 17 per cent to reach 12.2 million in 2015, but the average length of stay dipped 0.3 per cent compared to 2014. Hotel occupancy recorded a one per cent increase to reach 75.4 per cent.
Total revenues for hotel establishments jumped five per cent to Dh6.62 billion, with room revenues increasing seven per cent as food and beverage revenues fell one per cent.
Sultan Al Dhaheri, acting executive director of tourism at TCA, declined to disclose guest targets for 2016 just yet but he said he expected to see steady growth.
Asked about the impact of currency fluctuations especially with the strengthening dollar, which the UAE dirham is pegged to, he said, “[The challenge] is very obvious in the European market, for example, where the exchange rate is different. It didn’t impact us in terms of [guest numbers] but it impacted our length of stay and [tourist] spending.
We’re focusing on other markets where there is no impact of currency fluctuations like India, and we think it will compensate.”
According to TCA’s report, UK remained the largest European source market in 2015, but all other European markets continued to record a drop in average length of stay.
Al Dhaheri expected average length of stay to increase as more tourism offerings come online in the emirate such as the Louvre Abu Dhabi and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, among others.
Growth
“Most of our [performance] indicators are healthy; we’re having good growth, and I think we have the right enablers to sustain this growth. The way we’re heading is in a steady growth direction. The issues we’re facing are more on a global scale, but we’re trying to prioritise and invest more in countries that are not suffering from these [macroeconomic] issues,” he said.
Looking at guest markets throughout the year, domestic tourism accounted for the lion’s share of 34 per cent of total guest arrivals — a 20 per cent increase over 2014.
Internationally, India was the biggest source market, followed by the UK, China, and the US.
Meanwhile, Russia, which has long been a key source market for the UAE, recorded a 17 per cent dip in guest arrivals compared to 2014. TCA said it was targeting a 10 per cent increase in guest arrivals in 2016 over 2015 from Russia, however, by focusing on high-end travellers rather than mid-market customers.
In December 2015 alone, guest arrivals in Abu Dhabi’s hotels reached 389,728, marking a 14 per cent increase over December 2014. However, hotel occupancy decreased by two per cent in the month to reach 77 per cent.
Eight new hotels and hotel apartments were launched in 2015 in the emirate, representing a 4.66 per cent year-on-year increase in hotel rooms from 28,374 to 29,760. Average room rates during the year stood at Dh438.
