Jordan Times
Thursday, May 20, 1999
Amman has the lowest hotel occupancy rate in Mideast, study shows
By Tareq Ayyoub
AMMAN — Despite Jordan's boom in hotel construction in the past four years, a recent report showed that room occupancy in Amman is the lowest among Middle Eastern countries.
The report, issued by the London offices of accounting and management consulting giant Arthur Anderson and based on February 1999 figures, said that the average room occupancy rate in Jordan is 51.7 per cent — a figure shared with the Lebanese capital.
Still, despite the report, Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Akel Biltaji said Jordan needed more hotels to absorb the flow of tourists expected to arrive to the region to celebrate the end of the second millennium.
“We do need investments in this sector, not only for the second millennium, but also for other types of tourism the Kingdom is expected to receive,” Biltaji said.
The minister was referring to “religious, medical and cultural tourism.”
Tourism officials and hoteliers admit a decline in room occupancy which they attribute to the stalemate in the peace process between Israel and its Arab neighbours.
“The deadlock in peace making in the region has affected the flow of tourists to the region. We hope a breakthrough will end such a situation,” Biltaji said.
Following the 1994 signing of the Jordan-Israel peace treaty, expectations ran high in the tourism industry that the treaty would enhance the flow of tourists to the region. But five years later, those expectations, have all but withered away.
“If the current political environment remains in the region, the tourist situation in Jordan will not change,” said Said Sawalha, managing director of The Regency Palace, a five-star hotel in the heart of Amman.
Tourism industry officials estimate that investment in Jordan's hotel sector is around $700 million, with the bulk of these hotels constructed in the capital.
They said the new hotels will raise the room number into 13,000, or 26,000 beds. Tourism ministry figures showed that 1.2 million tourists visited Jordan in 1998, earning the country $850 million, the second largest revenue earner after the mining industry.
Sawalha believes hotel construction is exaggerated and called for a review of this situation.
“If I had the money, I would be hesitant to invest in hotel construction. I am sceptical. If they were serious and wanted to invest, they should go to other areas in the Kingdom,” he added.
The Arthur Anderson report said the highest hotel occupancy rate was in the Saudi capital of Riyadh at 82.7 per cent, up significantly from 62.2 per cent in 1998, followed by Cairo at 82.5 per cent, compared to only 66.5 per cent last year.
Other countries included in the report were Morocco, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Oman.
The UAE city of Dubai was reported to have the highest average single room rate at $162 per night up from $136 in the same period of 1998.
Kuwait City ranked second with $154, compared to $170 in 1998, while Beirut came in third with $147.52, compared to $137 a year ago.
The report said the lowest average room rate in the Middle East was in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Hurghada where a single night costs $27, compared to $29.43 in the same period of the previous year.