Abu Dhabi has surpassed one million hotel guests for the first half of the year and seems likely to achieve its tourism aims for 2011, although increased competition could eat into margins in the longer term, Global Arab Network reports according to OBG. The Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA) released its report on the industry's first-half year performance at the end of July, showing that the emirate's hotels hosted more than 1m guests during the first 6 months of the year, an increase of 11 percent over the same period in 2010. There was also a 26 percent jump in the number of room occupancy nights, exceeding the three million mark, with rates for Abu Dhabi's hotels running at 70 percent, up by 10 percent on the first 6 months of last year. ADTA has set the goal of two million hotel guests for 2011, which seems achievable given the year's performance to date. Breaking the two million barrier would be a significant increase given that the figure for 2009 was 1.54 million. One percentage that did not rise quite so sharply was revenue, which climbed 6 percent to reach a total of Dh2.26 billion ($615.4 million). This slower rate of growth, despite the steep increase in visitor numbers, was due to reducing reduction of room tariffs in order to boost bookings, noted by ADTA's chairman, Sheikh Sultan bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan. “Results have been assisted by the destination's heightened competitiveness, with average room rates falling by 15 percent in the first half compared to last year, making Abu Dhabi a more affordable upscale option than Sydney, Paris, New York or Tokyo,” Al Nahyan told local media. Some industry figures, although welcoming higher guest traffic, fear that the pressure on hotels to lower prices in order to maintain occupancy rates will only increase next year, as there are at least 10 new luxury hotels nearing completion, which will add approximately 4000 new rooms to the existing stock of more than 20,000 by the end of 2012. Following the ADTA data release, Kamal Fakhouri, the chief operating officer at Cristal Hotel Abu Dhabi, said that room rates had fallen due to competition between hotels and would continue this trend in 2012, although he said it would be difficult to determine how great the reduction will be. Paul Simmons, the director of sales at the Millennium Hotel Abu Dhabi, was somewhat more optimistic. He acknowledged that increased competition in 2011 has pushed down room rates but said he did not expect tariffs to fall to the same degree in 2012. “I don't think we will see the impact we've already seen this year,” he said in an interview with Gulf News. “Although there are going to be new hotels in the market, they're not going to hit the ground running with full occupancies.” BM
