JEDDAH – Jeddah hotels rallied through Ramadan, while Egypt is hit by political uprisings. Four and five star hotels in Jeddah continued to register strong growth, with performance in July exceeding year to date levels, the latest HotStats survey of full-service hotels in seven MENA cities by TRI Hospitality Consulting Middle East on Monday. As a regionally renowned seaside destination, Jeddah benefitted from recurrent tourism during peak season coupled with being a stopover destination for pilgrims en route to the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah during the month of Ramadan. Occupancy reached a robust 81.2 percent, despite declining 2.7 percent from the previous year. Jeddah was the only market surveyed by HotStats to see positive RevPAR growth, which increased 11.6 percent to $214.75, driven by a 15.3 percent growth in rates. Backed by a healthy average room rate of $264.48, hotels reported the highest profit margins amongst the seven markets surveyed for the month of July with a GOPPAR of $174.68, up 21.5 percent from the previous year. Conversely, hotels in Riyadh suffered a gradual decline in performance across 2013. The marginal increase in average rates of 0.9 percent was insufficient to negate the 4.2 percentage point decline in occupancy to 43.9 percent which drove RevPAR down 7.9 percent to $96.06. — SG
