Compared with the other major cities in the Gulf region which booked a slump, Makkah and Madina recorded the highest increases in occupancy and RevPAR (revenue per available room) against the same period in 2010, Ernst and Young global consulting firm said in its "Middle East Hotel Benchmark Survey" for August. The report said revenue levels for Makkah and Madina hotels shot up 55.3 percent to $722 and 52.3 percent to $353 respectively over August 2010. The occupancy rate increased 10 percent in Makkah and four percent in Madina, which brought occupancy levels to 91 percent and 79 percent in the two cities respectively. Elsewhere, UAE hotels suffered a drop in occupancy and revenue owing to slow summer tourism coinciding with Ramadan, the report noted. Occupancies and revenues for Dubai hotels were down 3.9 percent to 52.6 percent and six percent to AED284 respectively in August, compared to the same period a year earlier. Abu Dhabi hotels experienced a 17.5 percent fall in RevPAR to AED287 as occupancies fell seven percent to 54 percent. However, the year-to-date performance of Dubai hotels saw a 7.1 percent increase in revenue (to AED621) over the corresponding period of January to August 2010, with occupancy levels touching 78 percent, the report said. Hotels in Cairo recorded revenue drops of 66.2 percent – the highest in the Middle East – in August, while occupancies were a mere 17 percent compared to 48 percent in the same month a year earlier, a 31 percent decline, the report said, due to political restiveness in the country. In the year-to-date performance, Bahraini hotels suffered the maximum hit, registering a 60 percent drop in revenue in January to August 2011 compared to the same period a year ago. Nonetheless, a report by the UN's World Tourism Organization (WTO) said the Middle East is set to see an approximate 145 percent rise in tourist numbers by 2030. The WTO numbers also show that the region's global market share is set to grow from six percent in 2010 to eight per cent by 2030. By 2015, emerging economies are expected to receive more international tourist arrivals than the advanced economies, according to the WTO, with their share predicted to reach 58 percent by 2030.
