The pipeline in the Middle East remains strong as room counts have been over 170,000 in every quarter of the past two years. Projects currently under construction are at 357 projects/117,112 rooms.

Projects scheduled to start construction in the next 12 months stand at 128 projects/32,684 rooms, and projects in the early planning stage are at 133 projects/28,588 rooms.

The Middle East had 88 new hotels/22,605 rooms open in 2019, this is the highest count since LE began tracking the region and surpasses the previous record of 72 new hotel openings/19,756 rooms set in 2009.
The LE forecast for new hotel openings continues to rise with 113 new hotels/32,230 rooms expected to open in 2020 and 129 new hotels/34,427 rooms in 2021.

Countries with the greatest number of projects in the construction pipeline are Saudi Arabia with 214 projects/73,137 rooms and the UAE with 193 projects/57,723 rooms. Distantly following is Egypt, at an all-time high, with 65 projects/16,097 rooms, then Qatar with 56 projects/14,257 rooms, and Oman with 42 projects/7,972 rooms.

Dubai continues to lead the construction pipeline in the UAE and throughout the Middle East with 152 projects/46,941 rooms.

Cities with the largest hotel construction pipelines are the provincial region with 70 projects/14,422 rooms; Riyadh with 59 projects/11,163 rooms; Jeddah with 53 projects/11,309 rooms; Doha, Qatar with 49 projects/11,951 rooms and Makkah with 32 projects/36,243 rooms. In the Middle East, 43 percent of the projects and 48 percent of the rooms in the construction pipeline can be found within these five cities.