Middle East's hotel construction pipeline jumps double digits

Lodging Econometrics reports that the construction pipeline for the Middle East increased significantly with 573 total projects amounting to 165,938 guestrooms, a year-over-year leap of 11 percent.

There are 348 projects with 109,027 guestrooms under construction, up 8 percent by projects YOY. There are 108 projects with 28,274 guestrooms scheduled to start construction in the next 12 months following a 9-percent increase and another 117 projects with 28,637 guestrooms in the early planning stage following a 24-percent increase.

The top hotel companies in the Middle East’s construction pipeline are Marriott International with 96 projects and 22,559 guestrooms, Hilton Worldwide with 92 projects and 25,303 guestrooms and AccorHotels with 83 projects and 26,206 guestrooms. The largest brands in the pipeline for each of these companies are Courtyard by Marriott with 20 projects and 4,218 guestrooms, Hilton’s full-service hotel with 29 projects and 10,345 guestrooms and Accor’s Novotel with 14 projects and 3,870 guestrooms.

The countries with the most projects in the Middle East construction pipeline are Saudi Arabia with 202 projects and 70,992 guestrooms, the UAE with 191 projects and 54,946 guestrooms and Qatar with 60 projects and 14,053 guestrooms. Cities in the Middle East with the largest pipelines are Dubai, UAE with 143 projects and 40,631 guestrooms, Doha, Qatar with 56 projects and 12,426 guestrooms and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia with 55 projects and 10,623 guestrooms.

An STR report stated that Saudi Arabia’s pipeline represented 76 percent of its existing stock of 84,500 guestrooms. Projects already in the construction phase make up the largest portion of the pipeline with close to 40,000 guestrooms in 94 projects as of January 2018.