Over 123,500 hotel rooms under construction in MEA

The Middle East and Africa (MEA) hospitality market is witnessing solid growth with a total of 123,589 rooms under construction in the region, said a report. Of this, about 95,089 rooms are under construction in the Middle East - up 14.3 per cent in year-over-year (y-o-y) comparisons, while the rest are in the African region, said STR's July 2017 Pipeline Report. Dubai topped the MEA list for the largest number of rooms under construction with the total put at 23,816 rooms in 18 hotels. Three other markets reported more than 5,000 rooms under construction in the region: Makkah, Saudi Arabia (23,816 rooms in 18 projects), Doha, Qatar (8,714 rooms in 36 projects), and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (6,712 rooms in 30 projects). Africa also reported continued development, with 28,500 rooms in 163 hotels under contruction, a 4.8 per cent decrease in year-over-year comparisons. The pipline report also highlighted rooms under contract for MEA, showing 166,166 rooms in 590 hotel projects under contract in the Middle East (up 6.6 per cent from July 2016) and 56,925 rooms in 308 hotels under contract in Africa (up 1.2 per cent from July 2016). Under-contract data includes projects in the in-construction, final planning and planning stages but does not include projects in the unconfirmed stage