(MENAFN - Emirates News Agency (WAM)) The Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM) has announced that the hotel industry registered growth in the first quarter of 2012, which showed a 9 per cent increase in guest numbers, 24 per cent increase in revenues, 22 per cent jump in guest nights and a 12 per cent rise in the average length of stay.
The impressive January-March 2012 results caps the stellar performance posted by the hotels in Dubai last year with revenues touching an all-time high of Dhs16 billion and 10 per cent increase in the guest numbers which crossed the nine million mark.
Khalid A bin Sulayem, DTCM Director General, said in a statement at Arabian Travel Market (ATM-2012) that "the remarkable results of our hospitality industry is the outcome of the substantial expansion of the tourist infrastructure, an increasingly impressive portfolio of tourism products, wider destination awareness, aggressive promotional and marketing drive and the growing air-connectivity to and from Dubai.
The iconic Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF) also contributed enormously towards this feat." He added, "The overriding feature of this strikingly impressive performance has been our focus on quality standards and going beyond the expectations of the guests. Equally crucial has been the inspiring partnership between the government and private sectors to reach higher levels of growth.
The new hotel classification scheme that has been put in place will go a long way in gaining more growth in the market which is seeing more rooms adding up to the inventory." During Q1 2012, Dubai hotels and hotel apartments played host to nearly 2.6 million guests, an increase of 9 per cent over the corresponding period last year.
Similarly, the guest nights swelled by 22 per cent to touch 10.35 million, while the revenues recorded 24 per cent increase to more than Dhs5.38bn.
The number of hotels increased by 1 per cent to reach 577 with the total number of rooms and flats swelling 4 per cent to 75171.
Hotel room occupancy rate stood at 87 per cent, an increase of 8 per cent while it was 84 per cent occupancy for the apartment flat, a 5 per cent increase.
However, the apartment average room rate witnessed 12 per cent increase to reach Dhs448 while the hotel average room rate was Dhs655, an increase of 7 per cent.
