The Istanbul hotel market experienced positive growth in both ADR and RevPAR year-to-September 2011, according to STR Global. The trend is encouraging, as new supply has grown by an additional 1,868 daily rooms, up 5.9% since 2010.
As a result of the government’s introduction of economic stimulus measures in 2010, the Turkish economy, which is still recovering from the downturn in 2009, is approaching positive GDP growth.
In fact, Istanbul, the European City of Culture in 2010, was ready to welcome an increase in tourism arrivals with an attractive exchange rate against the major currencies and a growing new hotel supply of branded hotels. The city’s central located between Asia, the Middle East and Europe helped position Istanbul as one of the top 10 destinations for Conference and Incentive events in 2010.
Istanbul became the third-fastest growing tourist destination in the world in terms of visitor number, up 30.1% in 2010, according to a MasterCard Worldwide report published in July 2011, surpassing New York and Amsterdam, attracting more tourists from the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Iran and United Arab Emirates), the U.S. and Europe.
For hoteliers it has meant that hotel performance in 2011 so far was mainly driven by ADR growth, up 34.1%, as the global economy as well as new hotel supply might have impaired the occupancy growth, down 3.3% year-to-September compared to the previous year.