Doha: Hotels in Qatar across all categories witnessed a solid growth in their annual revenues, with the budget hotels registering the highest increase of over 26 percent in 2019, compared to the previous year. The year-on-year rise in hotel revenues can be attributed to concerted efforts on the part of government and private agencies in boosting the number of inbound tourists, especially the cruise tourists which surged by 90 percent in 2019 against the same period in 2018.
The average revenue of hotels (measured by per available room) increased to QR249 in December 2019 (YTD), up more than 7.3 percent, or QR17 per room, compared to QR232 recorded a year ago (December 2018), latest official data show.
The increase in the number of tourists helped boost the average occupancy rates of hotels (all categories combined) in December (YTD) which increased by 6 percentage points to 66 percent in December 2019 against 60 percent a year ago.
Data show that all categories of hotels registered a moderate growth in ‘hotel revenues per available room’ by varying degrees ranging between QR9 and QR24, with 1&2-Star hotel rooms seeing the highest 26.37 percent, or QR24 (from QR91 to QR115).
This was closely followed by 3-Star category hotels which saw their average revenue per room increasing to QR136 in December 2019, up nearly 10.5 percent (or QR13 per available room) compared to QR123 reported for December 2018.
Revenues of 4-Star hotel rooms edged-up to QR154 in December 2019 (YTD) against QR146 per available room in the same month last year, according the recently released data by the Planning and Statistics Authority.
The revenues of 5-Star category hotel rooms also increased by QR17 to QR339 in December 2019 compared to QR322 recorded in December 2018. P20
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Contrary to hotel room revenues, average revenues for ‘Hotel Apartments’ (measured in per available room) remained almost stable (year-on-year) at QR234 in 2019 against QR235 in the previous year.
Revenues per available room for Deluxe category apartments stood at QR252 in December 2019 against QR254 in 2018, and revenue for Standard category remained unchanged at QR148.
The improvement in the performance of the hotel industry can be attributed mainly to the increase in the number of tourists, especially as a result of sharp growth in cruise tourism. According to recently released data some 2.13 million (2,136,504) people visited Qatar in 2019 (YTD), nearly 18 percent increase against 1.81 million (1,819,344) in 2018. Out of that about 1.94 million people came by Air and the remaining 0.19 million (196,795) entered by sea. The number of sea bound tourists witnessed a record growth of nearly 90 percent in 2019 compared to 103,831 visitors in 2018.
