Dubai gold retailer to expand into hotels

Dubai-based gold retailer Pure Gold Group is planning to invest AED500 million ($136 million) boosting its network of stores up to 250 by 2020, while it is also planning to entering the hospitality sector within the next few years, according to its most senior executive.

“In 2020 for the expo the city needs more hotels. So we will also consider opening one or two hotels in Dubai in 2016, 2017 or 2018, before two years... We will go with a four star or five star.

“Not Pure Gold, we don’t want to go with our own name... Something that is a chain we can bring here,” Firoz Merchant, the founder and chairman of Pure Gold Group told Arabian Business.

Merchant is planning to invest AED500 million ($136 million) expanding his network of stores to 250 by 2020, up from its 125 outlets in 12 countries.

As a result, it will also add an additional 2000 employees, bringing its total number of staff to around 5500 by 2020.

“It is very simple... The strong customer base started the journey from Dubai and then into 13 countries. We want to go now into new countries.

“At the same time Dubai is a tourist destination so where we have a presence it helps us when they come here as a tourist and when they see the company they feel they are in the right place.”

Around AED400 million will be invested in new Pure Gold stores and an additional AED100 million ($27.2 million) in its La Moda sunglasses brand, increasing its number of stores from 15 to 50 by 2020 across the region.

In August last year, Pure Gold Group announced that its Arianna boutique brand had opened its first international brand in Paris.

Located in the Peninsula Hotel, the outlet features jewellery and accessories designed by the likes of Gucci, Roberto Coin, Moraglione, Annamaria Cammilli, and Leo Pizzo.