Hilton said its Middle East revenues fell about 30 per cent in the second quarter because of the Iran war, then recovered to broadly flat year-on-year performance by the third quarter. The numbers tell the story cleanly enough: a corporate balance sheet takes a hit when war shakes the region, then climbs back as the market adjusts and the machinery keeps moving.
War, Revenue, and the Hotel Chain
Simon Vincent, Hilton’s president for Europe, Middle East and Africa, said the company expects to return to prewar levels next year. Speaking at the Arabian Travel Market in Dubai, he described a year that began with record results in the UAE and then fell apart fast. “We had a record Q4 [2025] in the UAE, and we started this year with a record January and February,” Vincent said. “Obviously, the crisis hit in March, and March and April were really challenging times. And [in] our second quarter, we went from a record start in January, February to minus 30 in the second quarter in terms of revenue.”
He added, “From minus 30 to minus 2 … it's a really strong recovery,” and said, “Into next year, we'll be there.” That’s the language of a multinational measuring catastrophe in percentages, then calling the rebound strength. The war hits people first. The company gets to narrate the damage as a temporary dip.
The UAE remains Hilton’s largest regional operating market, with 36 trading hotels and 13 more in the pipeline across the country. Hilton said it is on track to more than double its regional portfolio to more than 230 hotels, trading and pipeline. The pipeline is expected to create about 32,000 job opportunities. Saudi Arabia accounts for more than 50 per cent of Hilton’s Middle East pipeline, with 85 hotels planned, and Hilton is introducing new brands such as Spark and Tempo to Saudi Arabia.
The Expansion Machine Keeps Rolling
Vincent said Hilton kept its hotel teams intact during the conflict and did not furlough staff, instead reducing working hours. “We've essentially kept our teams intact in the hotels and I think that's really important from a continuity point of view,” he said. That continuity, in corporate terms, means the workforce stays in place while the company waits out the shock and prepares the next round of expansion.
He also said there was “still appetite to build new hotels,” and that the company plans to bring new brands from its global portfolio of 28 to the Middle East, which represents about 3 per cent of Hilton’s total business. The region may be a small slice of the global empire, but it remains a profitable one, even when the surrounding politics turn violent and the people living through it absorb the cost.
Automation for the Front Desk, Not the Front Line
Hilton is also expanding its use of artificial intelligence across the customer journey and back-office operations. Vincent said AI is “really there to facilitate excellence in customer service rather than to replace individuals.” He said it could help with holiday research, booking, itinerary planning, hotel-stay preparation, recruitment, finance and human resources, and could improve personalisation for travellers.
So the chain is cutting through the region’s instability with the usual corporate tools: keep the staff, trim the hours, expand the pipeline, automate the paperwork, and wait for the next quarter to look better. The war becomes a line item. The hotel chain becomes a beneficiary of recovery. The people living under the conditions that produce those numbers don’t get a quarterly call.