In 2008, the ACI World Traffic Report ranked Amman's international airport tenth in the Middle East.

According to Airport International Group, arrivals and departures at the airport reached 4,770,000 passengers in 2009.¹

The 6.5% increase on 2008 was attributable mainly to the third quarter of the year, when passenger movements in July and August each exceeded a record 500,000 passengers.

New and additional flights were also announced in 2009, including Royal Jordanian, Emirates, FlyDubai, Austrian Airlines, Malev, Bahrain Air and Watanya, and chartered airlines such as Neosair, Blue Panorama, Hamburg International and Air Mediterranée;

As a result of the global economic downturn and its delayed regional repercussions, year-end hotel occupancy in Amman dropped from 66.3% in 2008 to 57.3% in 2009. Nonetheless, hotels in the city were able to achieve an average rate increase of 11.6% that year. A better economic outlook improved occupancy during the first two months of 2010 compared to 2009, increasing Year-to-February revenue per available room (RevPAR) by more than 6% to JOD51.06;

There was a very modest increase in the supply of branded hotel rooms in Amman in 2009 with the opening of the Ramada and Ibis hotels, together accounting for 365 rooms. Confirmed future openings are expected to add more than 1,600 internationally branded rooms to the existing supply by 2013.

Hotel Demand Patterns

• Passenger movements at Queen Alia International Airport increased at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.1% over the last 15 years and the airport witnessed reasonable growth of 6.5% in 2009. The airport is currently undergoing an expansion in order to be able to accommodate the Airbus A380 and handle up to nine million passengers a year;
• In 2008, the number of room nights spent in Amman was 3.74 million (an increase on 2007). However, this figure had dropped by year-to-September 2009 to 2.33 million, marking an annual decrease of around 17% compared to the same period in 2008. This drop was significant in the three to five-star hotels in Jordan, while the demand for hotels within the one and two-star categories experienced considerable growth;
• According to the Central Bank of Jordan, tourism revenues dropped by 1.2% by the end of 2009 to JOD2.064 billion. The number of visitors to the country also witnessed a similar 2.0% drop over 2008, standing at 7,084,552 by the end of the year, according to the Ministry of Tourism & Antiquities;
• Jordanians living abroad and nationals from Saudi Arabia are the largest source markets for Jordan, particularly Amman. Jordanians residing abroad generated 680,587 visitors Year-to-September 2009, an increase of 7.2% compared to the previous year. Saudi nationals accounted for 937,854 visitors in the same period, increasing by 7.6%. However, these visitors, among others, were not enough to compensate for the loss from the Egyptian, Lebanese, European and other markets, which seem to have slowed down, primarily because of the economic crisis. 

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¹ - The international consortium of investors behind the expansion and renovation of Amman's Queen Alia International Airport

This market snapshot is the seventh in a series of articles that HVS will be producing every month on a series of key markets. In writing these articles we aim to combine the market expertise of HVS with STR Global data for each key market. Our analysis for this market is based on a sample of more than 3,500 rooms, as provided by STR Global. We consider that in today's challenging environment a regular update is more vital than ever in helping to assess the challenging market conditions and determine the best strategy for each hotel.