Luxury hotels are dominating in Qatar’s hospitality market. Around 50 percent of hotel rooms in the country belonged to five-star hotels at the end of 2017. Four-star hotels have the second biggest share in Qatar’s growing hospitality market which had over 22,900 rooms at the end of last year.
“Total supply of hotel room keys (not including hotel apartments) at year end was 22,921, contained within 98 properties. Of these, 49.7 percent were categorized as 5-star, while 37.6 percent were categorized as 4-star,” said a report by real estate consultancy firm DTZ Qatar.
Qatar’s hospitality market is unexpected to witness any drastic change in the near future as the dominance of four and five-star hotels is likely to continue. The supply of new properties in the country suggests that luxury hotels will continue their reign in the local market in coming years.
“Current supply is heavily weighed in favor of expensive luxury hotel establishments, however, the recent opening of good quality mid-market hotels such as the Holiday Inn, Premier Inn and Millenium Plaza have started to redress this balance,” said the report assessing the development during the first quarter of 2018.
“There are currently in the region of 17,000 hotel keys and serviced apartments at various stages of planning and construction in Qatar, with the majority expected to be delivered to 4-star or 5-star specifications,” it added.
The total number of hotels and hotel apartment developments currently operating in Qatar was officially recorded at 122 in Qatar Tourism Authority’ (QTA) end of year report for 2017. These properties provide a total of 25,167 keys, including hotel rooms suites and hotel apartments.
With various measures taken by the authorities in the past, Qatar hospitality market is set to welcome strong inflow of tourists in the coming years. Qatar, in September last year, witnessed the launch of the Next Chapter of its National Tourism Sector Strategy 2030, which charts the next five years of the tourism sector’s growth in Qatar.
The Next Chapter aims to attract 5.6 million visitors to Qatar annually by 2023, double the number which the country welcomed in 2016. It also aims to achieve a 72 percent occupancy rate across all hotel establishments, through a combination of increasing demand and diversifying the country’s tourist accommodation offering.
Also by 2023, the strategy aims to have increased tourism’s direct contribution to Qatar’s GDP from QR19.8bn in 2016 to QR41.3bn, representing a direct contribution to the GDP of 3.8 percent compared to 3.5 percent in 2016.
Qatar also announced the expansion of visa-free entry to 80 countries and the introduction of the e-visa platform.
The Peninsula
30/05/2018
