KUWAIT: General Manager of Leaders Group Company for Consultancy and Development (the representative of UNWTO in Kuwait), Nabila Al-Anjeri stressed that the Kuwaiti market lacks luxurious hotel apartments run by international professional hotel companies. "Hotel apartments are so limited in Kuwait and do not meet the demand, especially with the high season of tourism from Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries into Kuwait, especially Saudis, during Eids and holidays," she said, noting that due to kinship to Kuwaiti families and sharing the same conservative traditions, Saudi families prefer apartments where they can get more privacy.
In this regard, the Leaders Group's monthly report for September 2015 explained that Kuwait annually receives 3 million GCC tourists as per exits traffic records, and that 1.95 million of them had entered Kuwait this year up till August. "This number is annually growing by 10 percent, and Saudis make up more than 80 percent of the visitors," added Anjeri, pointing out that the total number of hotel apartments was only 3,000.
The report also shows that only KD 1 billion was currently invested in the local hotel sector, adding that the majority of that amount was invested in five and four-star hotels that usually have low occupancy rates with a maximum of 50 percent at best. "Hotel apartments occupancy rates were 46 percent in June and 34 percent in July with higher demand of up to 90 or 95 percent occupancy during winter", Anjeri remarked.
The report also stressed that per night cost of staying at hotel apartments ranged between KD 25-60, which is cheap compared to the cost of KD 85-110 per night at fivestar hotels, KD 50-70 at four-star hotels and KD 30-40 at three-star hotels. "This made some major companies invest in furnished apartments and they managed to expand within a short period," added the report. Furthermore, the report underscored that the hotels' sector did not get any official support as the case worldwide in general, and in GCC states in specific. "Relevant authorities do not deal with hotels as a regulated industry, as there are many buildings which get licensed and built as ordinary ones then get turned into hotels without matching internationally acknowledged hotel specifications and standards," the report concluded.
© Kuwait Times 2015
