Middle East & Africa pipeline grows in February

There are currently 640 hotels totalling 149,799 rooms under contract in the Middle East/ Africa region according to STR Global’s February 2015 construction pipeline report.

The data shows that seven more hotels are under contract in comparison to the January pipeline report, which showed that 633 hotels were under contract.

Among the countries in the region, the UAE reported the most rooms under construction with 21,893 rooms in 76 hotels.

Three other countries reported more than 4000 rooms under construction: Saudi Arabia (16,945 rooms in 57 hotels); Qatar (6492 rooms in 24 hotels); and Egypt (4004 rooms in 14 hotels).

The under contract data includes projects in the in construction, final planning and planning stages but does not include projects in the unconfirmed stage.

Last week, STR Global released its preliminary February performance for Dubai, which showed a 7.4% decline in revenue per available room (RevPAR) to AED852.00 (US $231.97).

The decline was linked to hotel supply outweighing demand.

STR Global provides a single source of global hotel data covering daily and monthly performance data, segmentation data, forecasts, annual profitability, pipeline and census information.