Jumeirah Group, the Dubai-based company that agreed to operate Istanbul’s Pera Palace Hotel last week, is in talks to manage another hotel in Turkey’s largest city.
Jumeirah may also run the Macka Hotel, which is due to open by the end of the year, Executive Chairman Gerald Lawless said at a briefing at the Pera Palace Hotel today. The Macka Hotel is being built by Demsa Group, owner of the Pera Palace, at a cost of about US$145m, he said.
“In the hotel business, one hotel leads to another in a country,” Lawless said.
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Jumeirah will manage 20 properties around the world by the middle of the year, Lawless said in an interview after the briefing. The company currently operates 13 hotels, including Dubai’s sail-shaped Burj Al Arab hotel, according to its website.
Like Hilton Worldwide Inc. and Rezidor Hotel Group, Jumeirah is trying to benefit from a Turkish economy that grew more than any other major industrial country apart from China last year. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is seekingmore investment from Middle East countries including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar as the sovereign debt crisis in Europe crimps the capital available to European companies for investment overseas.
The Pera Palace was built in 1892 to accommodate passengers on the Orient Express train service from Europe, according to its website. The 115 rooms include one named after Agatha Christie, where the author is said to have written “Murder on the Orient Express,” according to the hotel’s website.
Greta Garbo and Ernest Hemingway also stayed at the hotel.
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