BEIRUT: Ernst & Young said the occupancy rate of four- and five-star hotels in Beirut declined to 49 percent in the first month of 2013 from 60 percent in the same period in 2012, a year already considered as a low base.
It added that hotels within the capital were among the few to have posted an annual decline, namely Amman (-18 percent), Muscat (-4 percent) and Jeddah (-2 percent).
The occupancy rate within Beirut was the second lowest among 16 cities surveyed within the Middle East.
It was followed by Cairo (32 percent), while coming after that of Amman (50 percent), Mecca (56 percent) and Manama (57 percent). A snapshot of the cities included in the survey showed that the average occupancy rate of hotels remained somewhat close to that seen in the first month of 2012.