STR Global released new figures over the weekend showing a total of 113 hotels are scheduled to open in 2013 in Africa and the Middle East. STR’s figures showed that 11 hotels opened in those regions during the first four months of the year, totaling 1,683 rooms, with a further 34,931 rooms to open throughout the year.
According to Ventures, the report found that the Middle East/Africa hotel growth pipeline for March consists of?483 hotels totaling 118,713 rooms, while 141 hotels are expected to be opened next year, bringing 30,924 additional rooms to the region. STR’s total active pipeline data includes projects in the ‘in construction,’ ‘final planning’ and ‘planning’ stages, but does not include projects in the ‘pre-planning’ stage.
Arabian Business reported that the majority of the rooms expected to open will?debut in the the upper upscale segment(11,269 rooms in 38 hotels), followed by the luxury segment (6,186 rooms in 28 hotels) and the upscale segment (5,909 rooms in 30 hotels).
Earlier this month it was found that the Middle East and North Africa regions are currently?leading the world in hotel price increases. Rates from December, January and February 2011/2012 were compared year-over-year to December, January and February 2012/2013 and found that hotels in the Middle East and North Africa increased in price by 8 percent. Overall, hotel prices worldwide increased 4 percent.
This growth is in line with research that debuted in March by the W Hospitality Group, showing that the number of hotels planned to debut in Africa?increased by 16 percent over 2012, while development was up 12 percent last year over 2011. The data is based off a sample of 29 international hotel chains, with analysis based off of deals signed with owners.