Auris Hotels sees Al Barsha Dubai business grow

Infrastructure improvements to Dubai's Tecom area, including Al Barsha, have led to significant increases in local hotel occupancies, according to Auris Hotels. 

"The Tecom area was difficult but this has now started to do better, since they have opened the roads and highways and the building sites have disappeared — more population is coming in, there is more traffic; the taxi drivers know it and it is full of life," said Auris Hotels director of operations Ammar Kanaan. 

"Occupancy here has picked up 20% over six months ago for all the hotels — they were doing in the 40–50% but now it is going into the 80s," Kanaan added.

General manager of the five-star Auris Plaza Hotel soon opening in Al Barsha, David Milican commented: "In Al Barsha we have very specific types of product and the location of each of the hotels is superb.

"With the metro and Mall of the Emirates, the feedback we get from the operators we work with is Al Barsha is much more in demand than it was two years ago. Al Barsha has become a destination in itself. If you compare it to the downtown areas with Dubai Mall and so on — Al Barsha is much more affordable but it has the same sort of facilities.

The Dubai-based company recently opened its fourth property in the emirate, the Auris First Central Hotel Suites, Tecom.

The group's other existing hotels are Auris Boutique Hotel Apartments in Al Barsha, Auris Hotel Apartments Deira, Auris Lodge Al Barsha and Metro Central Hotel Suites, Tecom. 

It will open the the five-star Auris Plaza in Al Barsha early this year.