Jumeirah Group reports strong Q1 results

Dubai-based Jumeirah Group – the luxury hospitality company which is part of Dubai Holding, a conglomerate owned by the emirate’s ruler – has unveiled strong Q1 performance figures for 2013.

Speaking at the recent Arabian Hotel Investment Conference (AHIC) in Dubai, president and CEO, Gerald Lawless, revealed the group had an energetic start to the year worldwide, which compared with the same period last year, saw both occupancy and daily room rates increase by 9%, while RevPAR jumped to an impressive 22%.

Dubai remains Jumeirah Group’s biggest business centre with 10 million visitors heading to the emirate overall in 2012 and Dubai becoming the 7th most visited city in the world according to its research.

Visitors from Russia to Jumeriah Group’s hotels and resorts in Dubai have overtaken those from the UK as the main source market, climbing from 18.4% in 2012 to 19%  to date in 2013, although Lawless said the UK market remained robust for the business – UK visitors have increased from 13.3% in 2012 to 16.2% in 2013.

Visitors from local GCC remained healthy, according to Lawless, growing from 13.1% to 14% in 2013, although visitor numbers from Germany declined in the same period, dropping from 12.35% to 7.4%.

“We feel we are getting there. We’re progressing very well,” Lawless said. “We have really started to get the idea of the Jumeirah culture out there.

“Based on the Arab traditions out of Dubai, which we have built our hallmarks around this culture. We want each of our hotels to be unique, each to have its own personality but the golden thread of Jumeirah is definitely its culture,” he added.