Doha, Qatar: Corporate and business tourism has supported Saudi Arabia’s strong hospitality sector performance in the third quarter of the year.
Year-on-year in the year to September 2023, Saudi Arabia’s hospitality has seen uniform improvements in its key performance indicators. Over this period, the average occupancy rate increased by 5.9 percentage points, this was accompanied by a 18.4% increase in its ADR and a 31.2% increase in RevPAR.
This strong level of performance has meant that these indicators now, in most cases, sit comfortably above their 2019 levels. In the year to date to September 2023 compared to the same period in 2019, we have seen Saudi Arabia record a 1.2 percentage points increase in average occupancy levels, a 9.6% increase in its ADR and a 11.8% increase in its RevPAR.
At a city level, year-on-year in the year to date to September 2023, in Jeddah, the average occupancy grew by 7.3 percentage points, while its ADR softened by 0.1%. This led Jeddah’s RevPAR to expand by 12.7%.
Taimur Khan (pictured), Head of Research – MENA at CBRE in Dubai, comments: “Corporate and religious tourism has significantly underpinned growth in Saudi Arabia’s hospitality key performance indicators in the year to September 2023, compared to a year earlier. Over this period, across the Kingdom, average occupancy rates are 5.9% higher, average daily rates sit 18.4% higher and the average revenue per available room sits a staggering 31.2% higher. Over the remainder of the year, with the likes of the Riyadh and Jeddah Seasons events still to kick off, we expect that this strong performance will continue.”
