North Africa hotel performance update

North Africa’s destinations have been some of the hardest hit in terms of hotel occupancy since the beginning of the pandemic. The markets reliant on group business and international demand, especially European travelers, have faced daunting challenges while domestic demand has been the only avenue to push performance.

During the earliest days of COVID-19, occupancy in North Africa was as low as 9.6% in July 2020. Since then, hotel occupancy has been slowly increasing to a level as high as 35.8% in March 2021. Most recently, North Africa saw a 29.9% occupancy level in April 2021, the second highest in the region since February 2020.

While looking at key markets, Egypt’s 38.1% occupancy level was the highest in the region in April. Although slightly lower than March (41.1%), that occupancy level may have been helped by the Egypt and Russia agreement to resume flights after a five-year suspension between the two countries.

Reflecting the aforementioned dependence on international travel, Morocco posted the lowest April occupancy level (14.4%).

In terms of average daily rate (ADR), Morocco (+57.8%), Tunisia (+27.5%), Algeria (+21.0%) and Egypt (+5.6%) all reported year-over-year increases in April, but absolute values were down substantially in comparison with the 2019 recovery benchmark.

For example, Egypt’s ADR came in at EGP12352.60 in April 2021, EGP10208.35 in April 2020 and EGP13736.34 in April 2019.

For further insights into COVID-19’s impact on global hotel performance, visit our content hub.