With more luxury hotels being built all the time and with new attractions such as Ferrari World coming online, it’s no wonder more and more people are deciding to visit Abu Dhabi.
And proof of this ever-growing influx of visitors has come in new statistics released by Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA), which have shown that hotel guest numbers rose 16 per cent in the first nine months of this year, compared with the same period next year. Some 1,326,463 guests stayed in the capital’s hotels and hotel apartments from January to September, and these guests stayed for a total of 3,596,388 nights.
Other statistics that indicate the growth show that in September hotel revenues rose 12 per cent on 2009, while food and beverage revenues increased by 15 per cent that month. They also show that more people from the UK are visiting Abu Dhabi, with a 50 per cent growth in the number of guests from Britain – a total of 83,293. However, because of the huge number of new hotels being built in the city, room occupancy rates fell 17 per cent in the first nine months of 2010, while average room rates fell 21 per cent.
Lawrence Franklin, ADTA’s Strategy and Policy Director, welcomed the soaring visitor numbers. ‘We are now well within striking distance of our 2010 hotel guest target of 1.65 million. With the addition to our leisure stock of the Ferrari World Abu Dhabi theme park… the prognosis is good.’
