Mid market matters
Finding a share of the market is something that Philip Wooller at STR believes is one of the main causes of the difficult market data that Abu Dhabi has experienced over the previous few years.
"Each hotel, whether it be luxury, upscale or mid market will eventually find their place in the market. However, when times are bad, those pricing lines will blur and you see luxury properties begin to drop into upscale pricing brackets.
Alternatively, when the market is strong then it will swing the other way and midscale rates may encroach into upscale. Therefore the rate fluctuations we have seen are just a natural side effect of a market that is continuing to establish itself,” says Wooller.
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Looking ahead, one development in Abu Dhabi is the growing popularity of mid market leisure and business hotels, with the Novotel Abu Dhabi Al Bostan and Adagio Abu Dhabi Al Bostan hotels due to open in the next six months alone.
For example, when the 414-room Centro Capital Centre by Rotana opened in February of this year, becoming the third Centro open in Abu Dhabi alone, Rotana group COO Omer Kaddouri described the brand as “our fastest-growing”, and predicted that this rate of growth would “continue as demand for affordable accommodation offering comfort, functionality and style has never been stronger.”
To Christopher Hewett at TRI, the real benefits of the mid-market is its ability to “appeal to the widest range of customers. It is these hotels which are looking in prime position to take advantage of the growing number of visitors to the emirate looking for affordable accommodation,” he concludes.
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