Hotels in Abu Dhabi and Dubai have both secured places in
Deloitte’s global hotel performance for revenue per available room
(revPAR) for 2008 it was announced on Tuesday.

Dubai
hotels continued to achieve the highest average room rates and revPAR
in the Middle East at $300 and $237 respectively, giving it the second
highest revPAR and third best average room rates in the world,
according to the professional services firm.

Abu Dhabi also saw
an increase in revPAR, up 46 percent to $231 per night, earning the
capital city the fourth place in revPAR, just $6 behind Dubai.
Occupancy rates of 81.5 percent also earned the city third place in the
world, said Deloitte.

The top performer in the world, according to the report, was Moscow.

Despite
the global downturn, the Middle East and South America were the only
region’s to report double digit revPAR growth during the second half of
2008, up 14.5 percent and 18.3 percent respectively.

Deloitte
warned that tourist regions must invest in key infrastructure
developments and offer value for money in a bid to combat the downturn.

“It is important for countries to invest in tourism
infrastructure developments, including airport expansions and hotel
developments once credit becomes available again, as this is needed for
the industries long-term growth and sustainability,” said Alex
Kyriakidis, Deloitte global managing partner for Tourism, Hospitality
& Leisure.

Other top ten cities in the world for revPAR
included Doha and Muscat up 25.2 percent and 31.1 percent respectively
compared to the previous year.

On Monday, Khalid A bin
Sulayem, general director of Dubai Department of Tourism (DTCM) said
Dubai hotel operators were better prepared for the economic downturn
than other regions after reporting 95 percent occupancy rates for
Dubai’s five-star beach hotels in February.

by
Claire Ferris-LayThis email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it