Saudi, Bahrain hotels see summer slump in occupancy figures

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.