Country-wide development
Increased airlift provides necessary reassurance to hoteliers, although it is not just the key cities of Baghdad and Basra in which there is hotel development taking place.
Faruk Group Holding is investing US $400 million in three hotels in Sulaymaniyah — the Grand Millennium Sulaymaniyah, Copthorne Hotel Baranan and Copthorne Hotel and Spa.
Faruk Mustafa Rasool, chairman of Faruk Group Holding, said: “Iraq is a promising market with more growth potential than any other market in the world is expected to have in the next five to 10 years.
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Our operations in Sulaymaniyah will support not only our entry into the Iraq market but also the global business community”.
Meanwhile, Lebanese company Malia Group opened the five-star Erbil Rotana in Kurdistan this year.
“Erbil Rotana will benefit the people of Iraq through the creation of hundreds of jobs. Malia is enthusiastic about developments in the Kurdistan and keen on taking an active role in shaping the outlook of tourism and helping rebuild a strong and solid economy in Iraq,” said Jacques Jean Sarraf, president of Malia Holding.
Kurdistan is proving a desired destination; in April Swiss-Belhotel signed an agreement with Sardar Investments Pty. Ltd for a four-star hotel to open in early 2012 and in May, Best Western International inked a deal with Golden Mountains Company for the Best Western Premier Erbil Hotel due to open in 2014.
Swiss-Belhotel International chairman and president Gavin M. Faull commented: “We have eyed Iraq for quite some time and this hotel is an essential addition to our rapidly expanding portfolio of hotels in the Middle East. The team is aggressively focusing on new developments in this region and to soon open our first property in this historic city in Iraq is another milestone for the company”.
Glenn de Souza, Best Western International’s vice president international operations — Asia and the Middle East, explained that the group took a similar approach.
“There are many positive points which have triggered the interest of Best Western in Iraq for its next step of brand expansion. Compared to other countries in the region, Iraq holds good promise when considering the economy, the people, the salaries and financial resources. It is a promising destination that holds vast potential as both a major business centre and a fascinating tourism spot,” said De Souza.
Future potential
And despite a spate of new signings in the country, Iraq is currently a market safe from the demand and supply issues which are so often experienced in other Middle Eastern hospitality markets.
A minimum of 500 hotels need to be developed in Iraq to meet the tourism demand, according to the elected chairman of the Iraqi National Businessmen Council, Ibrahim al Baghdadi.
“According to the strategic investment plan, we need at least 500 hotels just for the four main cities,” al Baghdadi asserted.
Al Baghdadi, who is also Board Member of the National Investment Council of Iraq, said that the new hotels coming online needed to address the five-, four- and three-star markets.
The new properties would be required to meet the growing numbers of religious tourists visiting Iraq, which Range Hospitality estimated to amount to more than 12 million people annually.
“According to our statistics, CNN reported 18 million, others reported 6 million, we say that there are 12 million people paying homage in the holy city of Karbala [alone],” asserted Range Hospitality vice chairman Mohammed Asaria, commenting at the Summit.
“When you look at tourism figures, that ranks pretty highly and it’s not that far away from Dubai,” he said.
“Karbala has no five-star hotels at the moment, room rates for a studio apartment in a two-star hotel are between US $200 and $400 but expansion is under way,” said Asaria, who is developing the aforementioned Al Rawdatain Gardens Hotel, which will be managed by Shaza Hotels.
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