Abu Dhabis 153 hotels and hotel apartments continue their upward momentum in attracting increasing guest numbers with figures, just released by Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority (TCA Abu Dhabi) showing some 304,637 people checked into the emirates accommodation during April – a 29% rise oon the same month last year.

Guest nights rose 26% to 933,809 with occupancy levels lifting 10% to 79% and revenues climbing 23% to AED577 million (US $157 million).

Our immediate challenge is to address the average-length-of-stay which dipped in April by 2% to 3.07 nights,said HE Jasem Al Darmaki, Deputy Director General, TCA Abu Dhabi. We are working on initiatives to encourage more products into the market and to step up the international trade and consumer awareness of the destination and its breadth of offering.

During April, the UK was the best performing overseas market for the destination with 19,010 Britons checking into Abu Dhabi hotels – a 34% rise on last year. They deliverred 84,395 guest nights, which was an increase of 24% and stayed, on average, 4.44 nights – which slipped by 7%.

Indians were the next largest buyers of Abu Dhabi accommodation with 18,790 checking into the emirates hotels 35% more than the same month last year. They accounted for 70,835 guest nights, which is up 24% on last year and they stayed, on average 3.77 nights.

April was a month when we benefitted greatly from the seventh season playoffs of the IPL tournament with many of the games being held in Abu Dhabi and attracting significant audiences from the domestic and Indian markets, explained Al Darmaki.

Guest numbers from China stormed ahead by 309% in April with some 13,501 Chinese staying in the emirates accommodation.

Much of this is directly accountable to the NU SKIN mega incentives which brought upwards of 6,000 guests to our hotels, said Al Darmaki. Guest nights attributable to Chinese in April were 33,505, which is a quadrupling on last years performance with average-length-of-stay coming in at 2.48 nights.

Abu Dhabis hotel performance in the first four months has left the destination well on course for its 3.2 million hotel guest target this year. Year-to-date, the emirate has received 1,139,408 guests – up by almost a third (31%) on 2013. Guest nights have risen 23% to 3,514,572, occupancy is up  8% to 79% and  total revenues have increased 14% to AED2,162 billion (US $588.7 million). The only slippage is in average length of stay which dropped 6% to 3.08 nights.

Year-to-date, top performing sources were: the domestic market, which grew 29% to 365,925 guests; India, which is the lead international market with arrivals increasing 38%: the UK which has delivered a 27% rise in guest uptake and Germany, which has climbed 13%. China delivered the most percentage growth with arrivals shooting up 232% making the Republic Abu Dhabis fourth highest performing overseas market.

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