Following a very challenging period of trading in recent years, year-on-year growth in revenue and profit at hotels in the Middle East & Africa in January represented a strong start to 2018, according to the latest worldwide poll of full-service hotels from HotStats. Whilst hotels in the Middle East & Africa suffered a 3.2% year-on-year decline in achieved average room rate in January, to $182.33, this was more than offset by the 3.3 percentage point increase in room occupancy, to 69.1%. In addition to the increase in Rooms Revenue, hotels in the Middle East & Africa successfully recorded year-on-year growth in Non-Rooms Revenues, which included an increase in Food and Beverage (+2.0%), Conference & Banqueting (+4.9%) and Leisure (+5.2%), on a per available room basis. Profit & Loss Key Performance Indicators – Middle East & Africa (in USD)January 2018 v January 2017RevPAR: +1.6% to $125.91TrevPAR: +1.4% to $207.75Payroll: -1.0 pts to 26.2%GOPPAR: +5.2% to $87.54In addition to the growth in TrevPAR, profit levels at hotels in the Middle East & Africa were further boosted by a 1.0-percentage point saving in Payroll, which fell to 26.2% of total revenue. The increase this month is a positive start to 2018 following consecutive years of falling profit per room at hotels in the Middle East & Africa in 2015 (-10.1%), 2016 (-11.6%) and 2017 (-5.2%).

Source: The North Africa Journal March 03, 2018 00:33 UTC