Abu Dhabi 2015 guest arrivals on a positive curve
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Recent statistics issued by Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority (TCA Abu Dhabi) revealed that guest arrivals into Abu Dhabi in first six months numbered more than 1.98 million, a rise of 17% on the corresponding period in 2014.
These guests generated 5,728,765 guest nights in the emirate’s 163 hotel and hotel apartments, an increase of 11% on the previous year.
This resulted in total revenue for hotel establishments recording an eight percent increase to AED 3.346 bn (US$ 911 m), room revenue increased by 11%, food and beverage revenue increased by one percent, while other revenues – which includes services such as venue hire and business events – rose 22% to AED 402 m (US$ 110 m).
The month of June showed an increase of two percent in hotel guests when compared to June 2014, with the 268,335 hotel guest arrivals generating a leap in guest nights of 13% to 870,304.
“We set ourselves a challenging guest arrivals target of 3.9 m hotel guests for this year, which we are very confident of achieving,” said Jasem Al Darmaki, acting director general, TCA Abu Dhabi.
“We remain committed to actively improve the average length of stay of our guests which has fallen by five percent over 2014. We have a series of events coming up to lure guests to spend more time here. We anticipate that traditionally strong second year half performance will pull average length of stay back up closer to three nights,” added Al Darmaki.
Domestic tourism from within UAE which accounts for a third of all guest arrivals has shown year-on-year growth of 14%, with performance from the Western Region’s 10 hotels recording a 48% year-on-year increase and a rise of 103% in its June arrivals.
India has regained its spot as Abu Dhabi’s largest international source market seeing 127,312 Indians arriving into the emirate – an increase of 18%, spending an average 3.71 nights each, well above the overall average of 2.89 nights. India is closely followed by the UK, China, Germany and United States as largest overseas markets, with the Philippines providing 63,855 guest arrivals, recording a 24% rise. Other counties in the top ten include Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan.
Chinese guest numbers rose 72% year-on-year with 102,217 guest arrivals delivering 148,842 guest nights, although their length of stay dropped by 18% to 1.46 nights.
Russian guests showed largest drop, by 10%, to 14,453 guest arrivals, attributable to difficult economic conditions.
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