Welcome to HotelierMiddleEast.com's rolling live coverage of Arabian Travel Market 2014. We'll bring you all the latest announcements from the event at Dubai World Trade Centre, exclusive news and essential industry gossip...
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06.10pm: Delegates streaming out of DWTC as the first day of the exhibition comes to a close. Only day one, and there has already been plenty of breaking news. Now it's time for the evening parties and plenty of networking.
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05.54pm: Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum has just passed by our stand on his official tour of the exhbition before it closes out its first day.
05.45pm: The 1743-room Anjum Hotel Makkah looks set to finally open next month. With expansions to that property as well as other developments in the city over the next few years, CEO Claude Chesnais tells us there are no plans to expand beyond Saudi Arabia.
05.30pm: Trump Hotel Collection vice president hotel development and acquisitions IMEA Shafi Syed has been in post for seven months now, with negotiations already underway for hotels in a range of key cities. The main targets are the usual suspects of Dubai, Jeddah, Riyadh, Doha and Muscat, but Syed says he’d also really like to secure a hotel in Istanbul, and potentially in Bodrum too, and that Cairo offers a lot of opportunities.
04:25pm: EXCLUSIVE: Emirates Grand is due to launch a serviced apartments property by the end of the year. Emirates Grand Hotel Apartments will feature 300 units with a mix of studio one- and two-bedroom apartments and will be located on Dubai's Sheikh Zayed Road. Furthermore, Emirates Grand will also rebrand the 127-key Tulip Inn Sharjah as an Emirates Grand property by Q2 of 2015.
04:15pm: While we knew that Lufthansa was launching its premium economy class, we can now reveal that this travel class will be seen in the Middle East in the first half of 2015. However passengers from Dubai flying to Frankfurt and then onwards to destinations like Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington DC will most likely experience it by the end of this year.
04.00pm Rotana today have announced 10 new hotels in the Middle East in new markets Turkey, Iran, Tanzania and Jordan. All of the hotels are to open by 2018 and Guy Hutchison COO, MEA, Rotana is currently working on the global sales network for these new markets. Meanwhile, occupancy is strong for Rotana's most recent openings in Al Ain and Salalah, with both having seen 40 - 50% occupancy in the first two months of being open. More to come on this story shortly... stay tuned!
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