HH Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum has been the patron of AHIC for 10 years. HH Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum has been the patron of AHIC for 10 years.

UAE AND KSA: Infinite opportunity?
Marriott International MEA president and managing director Alex Kyriakidis, who spoke at the first AHIC under his previous designation of global managing partner, tourism, hospitality and leisure at Deloitte and will return this year to speak specifically about the African market, says that the most significant change in the hotel investment landscape in the Middle East over the past 10 years has been the “emergence of the UAE and KSA as the ‘super growth’ markets”, highlighting in KSA the creation of a new economic city, Jazan, where Marriott has two hotels.

Also speaking at both the first and 10th conference, Rudi Jagersbacher, president MEA for Hilton Worldwide, highlights the “pace of change” and “rapid expansion” of hotel operators as being hugely significant, bringing the “potential of the region to the attention of a greater number of global investors who may otherwise have looked elsewhere to invest their funds”.
Like Alex Kyriadkis, he cites UAE and Saudi Arabia, plus Qatar, as the geographic areas with the biggest growth potential.

Starwood senior vice president acquisitions and development Neil George also notes continuing opportunity in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, as well as a focus on expanding in Iraq and Oman, while at InterContinental Hotels Group, Taras Ettl, vice-president, development, Middle East and Africa, reveals that “50% of our system size and about 65% of our development pipeline” is in UAE and KSA alone.

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Saudi Arabia is also a key expansion market for Accor, which formed a strategic alliance with with the Omar Kassem Alesayi Group to open 10 properties in Saudi Arabia by 2018.

“The two companies signed a management contract for the first three of these hotels under Accor’s Ibis brand, including a 200-room and 300-room hotel in Jeddah and a 194-room hotel in Riyadh,” says Jean-Jacques Dessors, chief operating officer, Accor.

“KSA expects to be hosting over 15 million visitors by 2014, with a growth rate of 6.7% per year thanks to the dynamism of its religious tourism. And as the religious tourism is growing in KSA, we believe that we have to develop our extended stay brand Adagio in this region,” adds Dessors. “Accor will open the first Adagio in Jeddah in 2016.”

Also in Saudi, Golden Tulip MENA president Amine Moukarzel notes a need to complement hotels with expansion in emerging cities such as Gizan, Onaiza, Al Jubail, Al Taif and Yanbu.

David Thomson, coo at JA Resorts & Hotels, however, says that “there can be no doubt that the UAE and Qatar will continue to represent the two biggest growth areas for hotel investment in the next 10 years in the Middle East”.

“Qatar, despite the recent negative press, also has to follow the Dubai model more closely if
it is to host the 2022 World cup and become another leisure as well as business destination in the Gulf. Presently it does appear to be sending out mixed and confusing messages but I would expect this to change in the next few years,” observes Thomson.

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