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Saudi Arabia cities attract more regional travelers in 2016

RIYADH, April 26, 2017

Increased investment in Saudi Arabia's tourism sector seem to have improved favorability of the country to regional travelers, as reported in the latest Hotel Price Index from Hotels.com.

Regional travellers chose to stay in Al Madina Al Munawarah more frequently in 2016, reportedly boosted by increased numbers of visitors on their way to Makkah. Investment in tourism infrastructure such as the opening of the new Prince Muhammad Bin Abdulaziz (Al Madina) International Airport in mid-2015, coupled with a strong growth of tourism for religious goals, saw the two holy Islamic cities of Makkah and Al Madina continue to attract the attention of this region . Makkah held its ranking as the third most frequented city by its neighbors and Al Madina inched closer to the top ten spot.

Riyadh, Jeddah and Al Khobar also enjoyed an improved ranking among the top visited cities by regional travelers. This could signify an increasing interest in the kingdom, both by leisure and business travellers. Among all the cities of Saudi Arabia, the major ones are Makkah ranking first, Al Madina the second, while Riyadh and Jeddah ranked third and fourth respectively and Al Khobar ranked the fifth.

Mena travellers are paying less for hotels

Even with major global political shifts and currency fluctuations around the world in 2016, travellers fared pretty well with average nightly hotel prices unchanged globally from 2015, as reported in the latest Hotel Price Index from Hotels.com. On average outbound Mena travellers paid 14 per cent less for hotel stays at their top 10 favorite cities including Istanbul, Doha, Paris, Dubai, Makkah and Kuala Lumpur.
    
In 2016, Dubai increased its total number of hotel rooms by 5 per cent. Continued investment in hotel room supplies may have meant visitors to Dubai and Abu Dhabi were able to spend more of their cash on shopping and less on accommodation as the HPI showed a decline in average price paid between 2015 and 2016.

Saudi Arabia inched closer to the number one rank, with more outbound regional travellers booking hotels in Saudi Arabia in 2016, than 2015. Outside of GCC, jetting off to neighboring countries like Turkey and Egypt continue to be popular options for outbound Mena travellers. Turkey and Egypt ranked third and fourth, respectively, as the top countries in which Mena travellers booked.
 
“The Mena region has long been a junction point for the world,” explained Michael Korkia, senior marketing manager EMEA for Hotels.com brand. “This has not changed much in modern times according to our findings, with several destinations intersecting trade networks, pilgrimage routes and experiential tourism opportunities. This might explain why Mena travellers are more likely to visit neighboring destinations before jetting further away.”

The HPI is an annual report on hotel prices in major destinations across the world, tracking the movement in prices that people actually paid*for their accommodation, and providing valuable insight into the reasons behind these changes. The data is extracted from the hundreds of thousands of hotel bookings made per year on the Hotels.com websites worldwide. - TradeArabia News Service
 




Tags: Saudi | numbers | Visitor | regional | Arabia |

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