The Bright Side
In order to understand the level of impact that these trends may be having on the market, it is necessary to understand exactly who our suppliers are, with more than 100 people taking part in this year’s Hotelier Middle East survey.

Of those respondents, over two thirds (67%) receive the majority of their business from hotels while the majority of respondents were kitchen equipment suppliers (20%), closely followed by a tie for second place between food products and housekeeping suppliers (16%).

Regarding location, the clear majority of respondents are operating in the UAE (90%), followed by 73% who operate in Qatar, 63% in Bahrain and 62% in Saudi Arabia.

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Our suppliers also continued to operate in the region’s more turbulent markets with Egypt (36%), Iraq (24%) and Syria (18%) still being viable markets for a number of our suppliers.

The UAE was also a firm favourite when it came to choosing which market presents the biggest opportunity, with 68% of choosing the thriving hotel market ahead of another popular choice in Saudi Arabia, with 21%.

This response was also matched by the choice of hospitality sectors in which our suppliers saw the most potential growth, with the luxury market selected by 48% of respondents, followed by a close split between economy hotels (13%), resorts (11%) and standalone F&B outlets (11%).

However, according to our results, the Middle Eastern market may not be looking quite so rosy for those in the hospitality job market, with the percentage of companies who admitted to making redundancies increasing to 43% from 34% last year.

Luckily for those that did lose their jobs, things may be now be looking up as 82% of our suppliers also declared that they are planning to recruit more staff in 2014, compared to only 68% who were recruiting in 2013.

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