Kempinski moves focus to Africa says regional boss

The regional hub of luxury European hotel chain Kempinski is focused on major aggressive expansion in Africa, the company’s Middle East and Africa president said.

Speaking exclusively to HotelierMiddleEast.com, Ulrich Eckhardt said that with Kempinski properties either operating or under construction in all Middle Eastern countries — except Kuwait and Yemen — the “main focus” going forward was Africa.

“We are heavily engaged in Africa and Africa is our main focus,” he said.

The group has recently opened in N’Djamena in Chad, with Accra in Ghana to follow. Construction is beginning on hotels in Abuja and Lagos in Nigeria, while two projects are planned for Morocco.

“We are very, very aggressively pursuing opportunities in the Ivory Coast, and in Senegal,” added Eckhardt.

“We also have interests in the Central African Republic, in Angola, in Cameroon. We have a project going in Rwanda, we are very actively involved in Namibia.

“On the east coast moving forwards, Madagascar, Mauritius, we are looking at all the islands.”

Eckhardt admitted that the hotels, such as Kempinski N’Djamena, have been affected by travel warnings and UN sanctions, but said: “It doesn’t deter us from going there”.

He said the ultimate vision was to differentiate Kempinski from existing operators in Africa.

“We want to have a clear differentiated brand awareness for Kempinski in Africa from all the other brands, There are of course the old timers, Hilton and InterContinental, but they’re all out, on the way out, and Kempinski is the new kid on the block,” Eckhardt asserted.

“It gives us a great advantage. We are completely and literally virgin to the old ailments of our competitors because they’re regarded as being part of the exploiting machine of the past so that gives us a lot of advantages.”

However, he warned that competition in the market would intensify.

“Everybody else is there and everybody else is becoming really aware, when you look at statistics and data it’s unbelievable, everybody seems to have woken up to Africa. It’s not easy to build a hotel there and it’s not easy to operate, if you want to do a good job,” he observed.