The results from the Hotelier Middle East Salary Survey are in and this year hoteliers are asking why positive performance in the industry isn’t being reflected in pay packets, with 45% reporting they earn under US $3,000 per month. As 125 hotels come online across the GCC this year alone, a war for talent is set to begin, and managers will have to up the stakes to keep their best staff

The sixth Hotelier Middle East Salary Survey is more comprehensive than ever before with almost 500 (490) hoteliers from across the GCC region providing responses – 102 more than last year.

It is also the first salary survey Hotelier Middle East has conducted since the announcement of Dubai’s Expo win in November 2013, an achievement which has left a residual buzz in the air in the UAE and beyond, and has contributed to positive sentiment among hoteliers in the industry for the first quarter of 2014.

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Highlights of the region’s quarter one performance are that Dubai’s occupancy was 87.5% and in February the emirate achieved the highest occupancy rates since 2007. Meanwhile in Doha, occupancy rates peaked in Q1 this year, up almost 10% on last year for the same period.

RevPAR has risen across the board with Abu Dhabi reporting an increase to $127.8 from $125.7 for the first quarter, and Jeddah seeing a huge boost from $184.1 to $200.4.

Additionally, RevPAR levels for the month of April in Dubai saw double-digit growth , marking the highest levels for the month since 2008. Of the survey respondents, 39% said that confidence has been restored to the Middle East, an increase from last year’s figure of 37.6%. (See our data library on p90 for more information on hotel performance).

This growth permeates the GCC economies and should therefore, translate to growth in salaries also, as Robert Richter, compensation survey manager at Aon Hewitt Middle East observes: “The GCC economies are doing well overall thanks to large government programmes and in the case of the UAE, a booming tourism trade sector. GDP rates in the region are much higher than most places in the world and hence investors and companies feel confident in the marketplaces, which will lead to job growth and reasonable salary increases.”

Assessing the pipeline, hundreds of thousands of jobs are expected to be created in the tourism sector, especially in the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

The Middle East and Africa pipeline currently includes 581 hotels with 137,799 rooms, according to STR Global’s April 2014 Construction Pipeline Report, and in Dubai alone, DTCM expects to double room inventory to 164,000 by 2020.

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