An additional 22,000 hotel rooms will be available in Dubai by the end of 2008, helping the fast-growing tourism destination overcome part of its room shortage that is blamed for hampering visitor growth.

Dubai had a total of 415 hotels and furnished apartments last year, offering about 40,000 rooms in various categories, according to the Department of Tour-ism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM).

"By the end of 2008 we will have about 22,000 more hotel rooms available," Khalifa Ali Buamaim, DTCM's director of overseas promotions, told Gulf News yesterday.

"We could have attracted more tourists in 2006 if we did not have a shortage of hotel rooms," he added.

Dubai hotels received about 6.5 million guests in 2006 compared with 6.1 million a year before.

Arrivals from certain important markets did not improve last year. The number of people from Russia, Central Asia and Baltic countries staying at Dubai hotels was 422,229, almost unchanged from 2005.

There was only marginal growth in arrivals from several other markets.

Top source markets include Britain, Germany, India and Saudi Arabia.

Buamaim said the DTCM will target markets such as South Korea and Spain to attract more visitors.



The number of hotels will increase from 303 to 325 this year, providing an additional 8,370 rooms, and seven new hotel apartments will add 1,936 rooms, he said.

The tourism department projects the number of hotel rooms to increase to 93,867 in 2016 when 31 properties planned as part of the Dh100-billion Bawadi project in Dubailand will be ready. Bawadi will have 29,000 hotel rooms, including 6,500 in the Asia-Asia, the world's biggest planned hotel.

Dubai will count 389 hotels and 131 hotel apartments by the end of 2015, according to the DTCM.

The current hotel shortage has pushed room tariffs and average occupancy rates high in Dubai.

Buamaim said city hotels are reporting high occupancy rates during Dubai Summer Surprises, a 10-week tourism and shopping initiative aimed at boosting retail sales and foreign visitor arrivals. "This summer we are doing better than last year. Many hotels are reporting 90 per cent occupancy."

Cindy Yoong, a spokes-person for Sheraton, said occupancy rates were high but summer leisure bookings have not picked up yet. "We are experiencing occupancy rates in the 90s at our hotels but almost 70 per of them are corporate guests. The real holiday travel from the GCC will start from mid-July and continue until the end of August," she said.