The Middle East region continues to show steady pipeline growth in hotel projects in the second quarter of 2023, with the highest project count since Q1 2020, according to the recent Middle East Hotel Construction Pipeline Trend Report from Lodging Econometrics (LE).
The total pipeline stands at 597 projects/146,521 rooms, up 10% and 5%, respectively, year-over-year (YOY).
At the close of the second quarter, projects under construction stand at 330 projects/90,619 rooms. Projects scheduled to start construction in the next 12 months increased 17% by projects YOY to 102 projects with 23,909 rooms. Projects in the early planning stage increased 31% YOY, reaching their highest levels since 2008, to stand at 165 projects/31,993 rooms.
Middle East countries with the greatest number of projects in the construction pipeline at the Q2 close are led by Saudi Arabia, with an all-time high of 276 projects and 72,144 rooms.
According to the report, three of the top five cities with the largest pipelines are located in Saudi Arabia and comprise 42% of the projects and 36% of the rooms in the total Middle East construction pipeline. These cities leading in project counts at Q2 are the Provincial region with 113 projects/25,312 rooms, Riyadh with a record-high 86 projects, accounting for 16,618 rooms, and Jeddah with 50 projects/10,995 rooms. Following are Doha, Qatar with 38 projects/9,383 rooms, and Cairo, Egypt with 32 projects/7,287 rooms.
