Rocco Forte Hotels has set its sights on China for expansion, chairman and founder Sir Rocco Forte told Hotelier Middle East.
"We’ll continue to - over the next five years - see new projects in Europe, in the US and maybe in the Far East as well, we’re looking at China particularly," Sir Rocco Forte said at the launch of the Rocco Forte Abu Dhabi.
When asked about the number of new hotel projects the group was eyeing over the next five years, he said: "There isn’t a particular number, when the right thing comes along we’ll do it.
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"It has to fit, you can’t just open a hotel for the sake of opening, it has to be the right property, the right partner something that fits in with the brand, it’s not that easy to do you can’t time it exactly."
Sir Rocco said the hotel group had "nothing else on the cards at the moment" for the Middle East and North Africa region, other than the four properties signed: A 159-key hotel is on track to open in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in 2013; the next Rocco Forte to open will be a 90-suite golf and spa resort in Marrakech, Morocco opening in 2014. Two Egypt properties will also open in 2014 comprising a 275-room hotel in Cairo and an 82-room hotel in Luxor, and details of the group's upcoming Beirut hotel are to be officially announced "soon".
"We were looking at something in Syria but that’s been stopped by the current situation there, so we’ll see how things go but I think a lot more will be coming our way over the next few years, particularly once these properties are up and running because we then have our window in this part of the world," he revealed.
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