OVER $3.39 trillion will be invested in regional hotels and supporting infrastructure by 2020, according to the Middle East Hotel Outlook 2020.
The study, an update of the groundbreaking Global Futures and Foresight (GFF) research study on the future of travel and tourism in the region, was unveiled at the Hotel Show last month and covers 13 Middle Eastern countries,
The study takes a ‘futures’ perspective on the trends and drivers shaping travel and tourism in the region to 2020 and beyond, identifying plans to add at least 750,000 hotel rooms to the hospitality landscape from Egypt to Iran. They found projected construction costs for the most recent announcements from over 30 developers, investors and operators vary from $100,000 to $2.3m per room.
“The research explores potential scenarios, challenges and oppor-tunities for regional travel and tourism and provides practical advice on how players in the sector can factor these insights into their planning,” said Rohit Talwar, joint CEO of GFF and co-author of the study.
Among the study’s findings were:
• By 2020 the region plans to build over 200 new hotels
• Those hotels would add 100,000 additional rooms
• Visitor numbers are forecast to grow to 150 million
• The World Travel and Tourism Council had estimated that the region would need an additional 1.5 million jobs in the sector over the next ten years
• Airport capacity will be added for 300 million extra passengers
• The region’s aircraft fleet would increase by over 150 per cent by 2025.
“Correctly analysing demand cycles both at the macro and micro levels is essential for the sake of national economies and for individual operators. Hotel and tourism players need to start modelling different possible future scenarios to understand the levels of demand required to meet targets for revenue per available room (RevPAR) and to help develop strategies for overcoming any weakness in demand or potential overcapacity,” said David Smith, GFF Joint Chief Executive and co-author of the report.
“In our experience, such scenarios help an organisation ‘rehearse the future’ and prepare for a range of possibilities,” added Smith,