With the focus having been on Africa in 2014, Kyriakidis is keen that “we don’t take the limelight away from the Middle East and North Africa region”, which also saw successful performance last year, particularly owing to the partial recovery of Egypt following the election of President Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el-Sisi in June 2014.
“Almost the day after the elections, business started to react positively and occupancies have started to climb dramatically in Cairo, and also the Red Sea resorts. Egypt performance last year from about June was the star of the show,” he says.
Marriott International employs 4500 people in Egypt, and Kyriakidis is proud to say that during the Arab Spring, which peaked in 2011, the company didn’t let go of any of them. Now that Egypt is beginning to perform more positively, Marriott is looking to grow its business there.
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“I’ve always been a huge believer in Egypt’s future of travel and tourism,” he admits.
“So many of our Gulf owners are very keen to invest back in Egypt and that’s very good news.”
Outside of Africa, in the GCC region, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are what Kyriakidis describes as the “super tier-one markets for us in terms of growth”, and he reveals plans to open 10,000 rooms in each by 2020.
The main focus for Marriott in terms of development is Saudi Arabia, where 3500 rooms are being built.
In the UAE, the pipeline stands at half of this, with 1750 rooms to come online.
Both destinations are investing in tourism infrastructure for different reasons, Kyriakidis explains, highlighting Saudi Arabia’s focus on religious tourism, which is fuelling investment in everything from transportation to hotels, to new cities.
“The Kingdom is a high priority and what we have signed to date and put in the pipeline is a clear demonstration of this.
Having started off in the major cities of Riyadh and Jeddah, Marriott will make its Makkah debut early this year
with the Makkah Marriot, set to add 540 rooms to the world’s religious tourism hub.
This will be followed by the opening of JW Marriott Hotel Makkah in 2016 and Courtyard by Marriott in 2017.
Kyriakidis says that the 10,000 room target can be split into 5000 rooms in the holy cities and 5000 across the rest of KSA.
“The holy cities do represent an unprecedented opportunity for us and for the industry as a whole to support the Kingdom’s vision for religious tourism.
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