Hotels in both Bahrain and Saudi Arabia saw declines in occupancy and room rates in July, according to new figures from analysts STR.
Bahraini hotels saw occupancy fall by 1% to 49.3% while Saudi hoteliers experienced a 5.2% slump to 48%, the data showed.
In Saudi Arabia, STR said average daily rates (ADR) fell by nearly a third (31.6%) to SR625.78 (US $166.86) while revenue per available room (RevPAR) fell even further - by 35.2% to SR300.14 ($80).
Analysts at STR said in a statement: "Saudi Arabia’s performance declines followed a weak first half of 2017, and July year-to-date RevPAR is down 15.1%."
They noted that although the country’s hotel performance is typically lower during the summer months, the double-digit declines for July reflect the impacts of low oil prices and high hotel supply growth.
In Bahrain, ADR fell by 11.5% in July compared to the same month last year to BD64.91 while RevPAR dropped by 12.4% to BD32.03.
STR said: "Following performance increases in June boosted by post-Ramadan celebrations, Bahrain hotels saw sharp declines in July. Those decreases fell more in line with recent trends in the country, as RevPAR through July was down 6.9% compared with the first seven months of 2016."
For the wider Middle East region, occupancy fell by 2.8% to 56.1% in July while ADR slumped by 16.1% to $134.00 and RevPAR dropped by 18.4% to $75.20.
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