Jumeirah Group will not be developing any hotels under the Venu brand it announced this time last year, executive chairman Gerald Lawless has revealed.
Speaking at the Arabian Hotel Investment Conference, where last year Jumeirah announced its new lifestyle brand Venu, Lawless said: “We’ve decided to part with the Venu brand for the time being”.
He explained: “We came to the conclusion, with the overall world recession of 09/10 and what’s going on generally, that in this stage of our development we decided that we would ask the management to concentrate and focus on the evolution and development of the Jumeirah “stay different” luxury brand, so from the hotels perspective at the moment we’re a single brand proposition.
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“We are Jumeirah and we will be Jumeirah for the future. We might look at it [Venu] again in a year or two to see whether or not there is a possibility to do something with the Venu brand, but right now for the immediate future we would not,” said Lawless.
Under the Jumeirah brand, the company has announced that it expects a total pipeline of 60 hotels within the next two years.
Lawless said: “We estimate between management agreements signed, hotels under development and hotels in operation, we expect to be totally around 60 [hotels] by 2012.
“Actually in operation by 2012 - by the end of this year we should have about 16-19 hotels and then three or four more - so by the end of 2012, we should have about 22 hotels in operation. We will have a further 38 signed up,” confirmed Lawless.
These include hotel openings in Abu Dhabi and Kuwait with the next 12 months.
However, in Dubai previously announced hotels on The Palm Jumeirah and in Dubai HealthCare City are on hold permanently said Lawless.
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