Reprinted from Hotels Magazine, Feb. 4, 2006

Dubai's booming hospitality industry is maintaining its vibrant growth tempo with the emirate's ever-expanding portfolio of hotels and hotel apartments, also known as condo hotels.

It posted impressive room occupancies since December 2005 after closing the three quarters of the 2005 with the highest occupancy rate of 86% and the world's highest revenue per available hotel room (RevPar).

The Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM) data revealed that the average hotel room occupancy levels for the months of December 2005 was 91.5%- up from 85.1% compared with the corresponding month in 2004. The average beach hotels occupancy was 96% for December 2005 as against 88% in December 2004.

The DTCM Manager Media Relations, Mr. Eyad Ali Abdul Rahman, said: "These numbers confirm that Dubai continues its impressive growth trends well into the year 2006. The aggressive promotional and marketing agenda of the department has been helping the Dubai hospitality industry grow further and post impressive results. This is a huge achievement for both the leisure and business tourism segments and clearly reflects the success of public-private sectors partnership."

For the five-star hotels, the average occupancy level for December 2005 was 95% as against 89% recorded for the corresponding month in 2004. In the four-star properties category, the December average room occupancy was 96%- up from 90% posted for the same month in 2004.

Three-star hotels too maintained the robust growth through average occupancies 95% in December 2005, significant increase compared with 88.5% registered during the same period in 2004.

Dubai hotels and hotel apartments (condo hotels) reported the highest occupancy rate in January-September 2005, competing and wresting the initiative from other reputed leisure and tourist destinations in the world.

Deloitte and Smith Travel Research have jointly put Dubai on top with an 86% hotel occupancy rate followed by New York with 83% and Singapore at 80%. Mr. Eyad said the hugely-inspiring performance by Dubai's hospitality industry reconfirms emirate's emergence as a year-round business and leisure destination for visitors from almost every part of the world.

Dubai hotels and condo hotels have also been ranked the first in the world in terms of generating the highest revenue per available room (RevPar) between January and September 2005, followed by New York and Paris, according to Global Lodging Review, a publication of the Deloitte and Smith Travel Research. The premium travel research publication highlighted that Dubai hotels' RevPAR (which provides a measure of the revenue generated by each available hotel room during the year) is the highest at US $175.47 while New York comes second with US $163.32 and Paris third with US $169.53.

Dubai's hotels have shown a 43% increase in average hotel daily room rates between September 2004 and September 2005 (year-to-date statistics). Dubai presently has 393 hotels and hotel apartments (condo hotels) with a total room capacity of 35,396, an increase of 6% from 2004.