Qatar's Al Faisal to double its hotel investment

Qatar’s Al Faisal Holding Company, which last year spent $309m buying the W Hotel in London, is planning to double its investment in the hotel sector, the company’s chairman told sister title Arabian Business in an interview in Doha.

“One of the specialties of this company is that we have a hospitality division and Qatar needs hotels,” Sheikh Faisal Bin Qassim Al Thani Al Faisal, chairman of the Al Faisal Holding Company, told Arabian Business in a rare interview at his offices in Doha.

“We have so many hotels now and definitely with 2022 [FIFA World Cup] we are to double the investment in the sector, not just in Qatar but all over the world and we have big plans for our hospitality division."

“Where there is demand we are interested in potential opportunities. We are looking for investment opportunities in many countries… Egypt and Algeria we have big plans for. In Asia, we are interested in China,” he added.

Al Faisal Holding made the headlines last year when it bought the Starwood-operated 192 bedroom W Hotel on London’s Leicester Square for a reputed $309 million.

In addition to the hotel, the ten-storey, 90 foot glazed building houses one of the most exclusive branded apartment schemes in London, featuring 11 luxury duplex branded W Residencies. In addition, the development is also home to Mars' 35,000 square foot M&M's World store, the first in Europe.

“We are delighted to have acquired this iconic landmark London development. Given its one-of-a-kind architectural quality, attractive setting… the addition of the W Hotel to the portfolio reflects our clear investment focus on high quality assets in prime locations as we continue to grow the business both locally and internationally," Sheikh Faisal said at the time.

Al Faisal Holding Company is engaged in real estate development, acquisition and leasing with a primary focus on the hospitality sector and hospitality-related services both in Qatar and overseas. The acquisition of the W in London brings its current hotel portfolio to 11 properties located across Qatar, Egypt and London, comprising seven fully operational hotels and four under development.

Al Faisal Holding’s group COO Mohammed Dobashi told Hotelier Middle East magazine the group is planning to buy 50 hotels by 2015, with London again prominent in his vision.

“It’s part of our strategy for the hotel sector that we have. Our goal is to develop a portfolio of properties within major metropolitan cities."

“London is one of the targets and we’ve got a few more in the works, focused on major capital cities that are not necessarily seasonally based. The W Hotel fits directly within our strategy.”

“We’re looking at two or three acquisitions particularly in North America,” Dobashi said. “This is a great opportunity for buying, there are a lot of great deals out there and we’re a company that is not afraid to take a risk. We have a proper structure,proper investment committee that does a lot of due diligence that utilises consultants to give us the intelligence required in order to make a proper decision.”
“In Qatar we’ve got the Marriott, the Shangri-La, Renaissance, Merweb, we’re doing a Trader’s Hotel, got a couple of Hiltons. There’s a huge need in Qatar for an additional 190 hotels. Our goal is to provide about 10,000 rooms to meet the demands of Qatar in the near future,” he added.

Qatar's tourism industry saw a four percent improvement in occupancy rates in the third quarter of 2011 compared to the same period in 2010, it was announced in November.

Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA) said four and five star hotel also witnessed an increase in revenues during the summer period, coinciding with a 24 percent rise in visitors from GCC countries.

The Gulf state’s tourism sector is likely to see a near-70 percent growth in hotels, the largest in the Middle East and Africa, according to the latest STR Global data.

The Middle East/Africa hotel development pipeline for January comprised a total of 495 hotels totalling 131,981 rooms, according to STR Global's construction pipeline report.

Among the countries in the region, Qatar reported the largest expected growth (up 69.9 percent) if all 7,340 rooms in the country’s total active pipeline open.

The Gulf state is looking to dramatically expand its tourism offering as it starts to look ahead to hosting the World Cup in 2022.

More than 6,000 hotel rooms came online in Qatar in the third quarter of last year, as 25 properties and 10 hotel apartments entered the market, the country’s ministry of tourism said in February.

The gas rich Gulf state is building 77 new hotels and 42 hotel apartments ahead of the FIFA World Cup in 2022, in a bid to accommodate a flurry of tourists and football fans.

A number of new hotel brands are expected to announce their expansion in the country this year, either as stand-alone projects or part of mixed use developments.