An estimated 55,000 luxury 4 and 5 star hotel rooms are expected to be built across the UAE of the coming five years, revealed Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels recently. More than half of the planned hotel units will be built in Dubai, and closely followed by Abu Dhabi.
"Last year the confirmed pipeline of projects that were under construction or in advanced stages of planning stood at approximately 35,000 rooms,” stated Arthur de Haast, Global CEO Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels, according to Khaleej Times.
“During the course of 2006 we have seen an increase in new development schemes emerging to meet the rising tourism and business travel requirements," de Haast added.
The move is driven by several factors, explained Thierry Loué, Managing Director Jones Lang LaSalle MENA, including "an abundance of capital seeking real estate, strong market fundamentals, significant growth in intra-regional travel, and greater awareness of Dubai and Abu Dhabi as tourist destinations," he said.
The numbers are increasingly impressive, outstripping other tourist location across the world. Las Vegas, for instance, the world's second largest hotel development, has just 42,000 rooms in the pipeline, with Macao following with 27,000 rooms and China's Shanghai and Beijing with just 11,000 and 12,000 respectively.
