The Gulf Outbound Hotel Index · Version 1.0
The Gulf Outbound Hotel Index 2022–2023
In 36,154 business-to-business wholesale hotel bookings placed through a single Gulf desk between 22 March 2022 and 31 August 2023, covering 7,345 properties in 726 cities across 113 countries: 60.3% of bookings were created outside office hours, the median gap between booking and travel was 9 days, and 25.0% of decided bookings were cancelled.
El-Jales, W. (2026). The Gulf Outbound Hotel Index 2022–2023 (Version 1.0) [Data set]. 60 Travel AI. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21796038
Licensed CC BY 4.0. Reuse is free; attribution is a condition.
Finding 01 — The night shift
Published 4 August 2026
In 36,154 B2B wholesale hotel bookings placed through a single Gulf desk between 22 March 2022 and 31 August 2023, 60.3% were created outside office hours — after 18:00 or before 08:00.
The busiest hour against the quietest
| Hour | Bookings | Share |
|---|---|---|
| 20:00 | 3,176 | 9.5% |
| 19:00 | 3,053 | 9.2% |
| 21:00 | 2,989 | 9.0% |
| 22:00 | 2,663 | 8.0% |
| 18:00 | 2,622 | 7.9% |
| 17:00 | 2,304 | 6.9% |
| 08:00 | 38 | 0.1% |
| 06:00 | 35 | 0.1% |
| 07:00 | 27 | 0.1% |
3,176 bookings were created at 20:00. At 07:00 there were 27. Both counts are published rather than the ratio between them: the 07:00 figure rests on 27 observations and any ratio built on it is noise.
By day of week
| Day | Bookings | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | 5,219 | 15.7% |
| Tuesday | 5,737 | 17.2% |
| Wednesday | 5,765 | 17.3% |
| Thursday | 5,357 | 16.1% |
| Friday | 2,516 | 7.6% |
| Saturday | 4,310 | 12.9% |
| Sunday | 4,390 | 13.2% |
Friday is less than half of Wednesday — 2,516 against 5,765. That is a specific fact about Gulf outbound demand that a global dataset averages away.
Which destinations are booked at night
| City | Bookings | Created out of hours |
|---|---|---|
| Tbilisi | 203 | 68.2% |
| Bursa | 242 | 67.6% |
| Phuket | 897 | 67.4% |
| Istanbul | 2,022 | 67.2% |
| Beirut | 224 | 66.5% |
| City | Bookings | Created out of hours |
|---|---|---|
| Muscat | 307 | 50.0% |
| Madrid | 174 | 52.1% |
| Rome | 254 | 52.7% |
| Riyadh | 540 | 53.7% |
| Munich | 316 | 53.8% |
What this means for an agency desk. Most of the demand arrives when nobody is at the desk. The quote that goes out the next morning is competing against one a client already accepted overnight.
Finding 02 — The nine-day business
Published 4 August 2026
Across 25,933 confirmed bookings, the median gap between booking and travel was 9 days, and 47.2% travelled within a week of the booking being made.
| Booked ahead by | Bookings | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Same or next day | 5,410 | 22.7% |
| 2–3 days | 2,579 | 10.8% |
| 4–7 days | 3,258 | 13.7% |
| 8–14 days | 3,337 | 14.0% |
| 15–30 days | 4,233 | 17.8% |
| 31–60 days | 3,089 | 13.0% |
| 60+ days | 1,927 | 8.1% |
Mean gap 19.6 days. Median stay 3 nights.
Booked earliest against booked latest
| Booked latest | Median days ahead |
|---|---|
| Munich | 31 |
| Singapore | 26.5 |
| Paris | 26.0 |
| Kuala Lumpur | 25.5 |
| Milan | 25.0 |
| Booked latest of all | Median days ahead |
|---|---|
| Riyadh | 1.5 |
| Kuwait City | 2.0 |
| Amman | 2 |
| Manama | 2 |
| Cairo | 2 |
Lead time is a property of the destination, not the customer. One desk, one customer base, and a spread of 31 days against 1.5 driven entirely by where they were going.
Finding 03 — The cancellation spread
Published 4 August 2026
25.0% of decided bookings were cancelled — 8,641 of 34,574 — but the rate ranges from 13.7% to 39.9% depending purely on destination.
| City | Decided | Cancelled | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bodrum | 223 | 89 | 39.9% |
| Geneva | 207 | 82 | 39.6% |
| Vienna | 168 | 62 | 36.9% |
| Munich | 296 | 106 | 35.8% |
| Paris | 817 | 292 | 35.7% |
| City | Decided | Cancelled | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Makkah | 1,955 | 268 | 13.7% |
| Kuwait City | 172 | 26 | 15.1% |
| Salalah | 154 | 24 | 15.6% |
| Madinah | 528 | 90 | 17.0% |
| Doha | 866 | 150 | 17.3% |
By country
| Country | Decided | Cancelled | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| France | 1,170 | 399 | 34.1% |
| Switzerland | 519 | 165 | 31.8% |
| Germany | 732 | 228 | 31.1% |
| United Kingdom | 2,607 | 790 | 30.3% |
| Spain | 668 | 194 | 29.0% |
| United States | 633 | 183 | 28.9% |
| Italy | 1,158 | 320 | 27.6% |
| Turkey | 2,981 | 785 | 26.3% |
| Thailand | 1,912 | 450 | 23.5% |
| United Arab Emirates | 6,957 | 1,592 | 22.9% |
What this means for an agency desk. Cancellation risk is a property of the destination. A desk that prices Bodrum risk the same as Makkah risk is mispricing by close to 2.9×.
Method in brief
One wholesale desk, 22 March 2022 to 31 August 2023. The export holds 36,159 records; five carry no product line and are excluded from every calculation, leaving 36,154. 90.8% of bookings resolved to a city; the rest are excluded from city and country figures rather than guessed into one. A city needs 25 bookings to enter a ranking and 150 to appear in a destination cut. Cancellation rate is cancelled ÷ (confirmed + cancelled); lead time is computed on confirmed bookings only. Full methodology and definitions.
FAQ
What is this a sample of?
One business-to-business wholesale desk selling to travel agencies, over seventeen months. It is not a global sample and is not claimed to be one. It ends in 31 August 2023, so it predates current regional conditions.
Are hotels, agencies or travellers identified?
No. Only city- and country-level aggregates are published. No client, passenger, booking reference or supplier is named anywhere in the dataset or on this page.
Why does the cancellation rate differ from published benchmarks?
Because published benchmarks measure different things. This one is 25.0% of decided bookings — pending bookings are excluded from the denominator. Against all rows it is 23.9%. Both are stated, and the definition is on the methodology page.
Can I reuse these numbers?
Yes, under CC BY 4.0, with attribution.