Accor will create up to 4,000 hospitality jobs in the UAE as it moves to almost double the number of hotels in the country in the next three years, the company has said.
The French hotel chain, whose brands include Sofitel, Novotel and Ibis, plans to open 11 hotels in the UAE, taking its property portfolio n the Gulf state to 25 by 2014.
Five of the 11 hotels will be in Abu Dhabi where demand is currently outstripping supply, said Christophe Landais, the managing director of Accor, Middle East.
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“The first four hotels will open sometime in the second quarter of 2012 and the Sofitel Corniche will open in December 2011,” he told Arabian Business.
“We are talking about 1,500-1,600 jobs for the capital. In total we’ll be opening another six hotels, four of which will be in Dubai and two in Fujairah. The whole thing will add up about 3,500 rooms and you can account for about 4,000 jobs in total,” he said.
“The market supply versus the demand is slightly unbalanced at the moment [in Abu Dhabi].”
Accor currently manages 55 hotels in the Middle East and has a further 21 under construction.
The firm in May said it was eying opportunities for its mid-range Mercure hotels through refurbishments in the region and has already rebranded the Novotel in Abu Dhabi to Mercure Abu Dhabi City Centre.
Accor, which operates fifteen hotel brands across the world, is also expanding its presence in Qatar, where it hopes to open at least one of each of its brands in the oil rich state.
“If we can have each brand represented with one property that would be a good start. After that it all depends on location and size,” regional CEO Charlie Langlais told Arabian Business in May.
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