Dubai hotels sink to 18-year low - more than half empty

[DUBAI] Dubai's hotels had the lowest occupancy in at least 18 years in July, standing more than half empty, as more rooms were created and demand declined, according to research firm STR Global. Occupancy declined 11.8 percentage points to 45.4 per cent from a year earlier, STR Global said in a report dated yesterday. That's the lowest since the company began tracking the Dubai hospitality market.

Dubai, which built some of the world's most recognisable hotels such as the sail-shaped Burj al Arab, plans to almost double the number of hotel rooms by 2020 as it expects a surge of visitors ahead of the World Expo that year. The emirate is targeting about 160,000 rooms, many of them in the three and four-star category rather than the luxury segment, Helal Saeed Almarri, director-general of the Dubai Tourism and Commerce Marketing, said in March.

Elizabeth Winkle, managing director of STR Global, said in the report: "As July is one of the hottest months within the region and coincides with the fasting month of Ramadan, the city had an overall negative trend, on top of growing supply."