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29 March 2024

$3.63trn boost for hospitality sector

Published
By Anjana Sankar


 

The Middle East region will see $3.63 trillion invested in the hospitality industry including hotels, leisure projects, aviation developments, cruise lines, tourism promotion and supporting infrastructure to receive more than 150 million visitors by 2020.

 

The largest components of the $3.63trn investment were projected to be $1.42trn for leisure developments and $1.13trn on tourism promotion and the supporting infrastructure. 

 

According to a study that covers 13 Middle Eastern countries for the period of 2020, the region will add airport capacity for 300 million extra passengers, build more than 200 new hotels, add 100,000 additional rooms and increase the size of its aircraft fleet by more than 150 per cent by 2025.

 

The Middle East Industry Outlook 2020 is an update of a groundbreaking research study by Fast Future and Global Futures and Foresight (GFF) on the Future of Travel and Tourism in the Middle East.

 

Rohit Talwar, CEO of Fast Future Ventures, told Business 24|7 that the study takes a futuristic look at the key players in travel and tourism in the Middle East and what implications it might have in the international perspective.

 

“The study is aimed at helping the region with consolidated data on the magnitude and rate of growth in the travel and tourism sector so they can have a better perspective in the challenges and issues in sustaining the industry,” said Talwar.

 

The research identifies plans to invest at least $580 billion in more than 900 hotels across the region from Syria to Oman. The study found projected construction costs for the most recent announcements from more than 72 developers, investors and operators vary from $10,000 to $5.71 million per room.

 

The 19 largest airlines in the region were expected to spend at least $143bn adding 876 planes to their fleets. The largest buyers in terms of aircraft purchased and total investment are expected to be Emirates – buying 245 aircraft at $60bn – and Qatar Airways purchasing 150 planes for $52bn.

 

The study also looked at 19 major airports and identified a total planned investment of $38.9bn with the 10 largest airports expecting to add capacity for at least 320 million passengers.

 

The two largest spending airports were Dubai World Central (Al Maktoum International) at $8.2bn and Saudi Arabia’s King Abdulaziz International at Jeddah, which is investing $8bn.