COVER STORY
We are forging ahead with opening our first hotel in Amman, our second property in Bahrain and we have two hotel apartments opening up on the Asian side of Istanbul. We will be opening a hotel in Turkey every year from 2015 to 2020. Other key markets for us are Doha, Jordan, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia. How has conflict in Iraq impacted Rotana?
We still plan to open hotel apartments in Erbil next year, to complement our hotel there. The owner is committed to building the property and a big believer in the Erbil market, as are we. Many investors are still confident in Northern
What about Egypt?
We are seeing business improve dramatically at our property in Sharm – it’s up 30% year on year – with increasing business coming out of the UK, Germany and Russia as more airlines fly there again. With the new government there seems to be a confidence that wasn’t there before and the general pipeline of hotels planned for Cairo looks quite strong. Your Qatar pipeline plans are aggressive. Why so?
Doha is similar to Dubai. It has an ambition to be a successful vibrant city and the government
opening hotel apartments in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and we have signed up for a beautiful five-star hotel in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), which will open by 2016. We are visiting other African countries such as Mozambique, Ghana and Nigeria regularly and hope that over the next six to seven years, we will have four or five hotels across the Sub-Saharan market. Boulevard arjaan by Rotana, amman, jordan.
"We don’t just want to be known as the company that goes to difficult places, but rather where there is business to be made, we want to be the first in town" Iraq’s prospects. There is a lot of business to be done there and opportunities in every industry. Occupancies have suffered – we should be running at 75% to 80%, but we are running at 45% to 50%, which really isn’t that bad in all honesty. Airlines are starting to fly to Erbil again, which will bring back the business. Our hotel is the premier hotel [there] so it benefits from government visits and oil and gas meetings and conferences. Our Rayhaan Baghdad property is also being built and on schedule to open soon. Rotana’s property in Karbala, the shrine city, which opened last year, is not doing so well because pilgrims are not travelling there, so the Iraq situation has had some impact. What’s happening in Syria?
The properties we had pipelined there are basically on hold. We are in contact with our investors there and there’s no movement whatsoever, as you would imagine. When things get better we’ll be ready to move again. How has conflict in Syria and Iraq affected your hotel business in neighbouring countries?
There has been very little impact in Jordan and we will open our first property in Amman on October 1. In Amman we will be introducing a new product, so we believe we will reach our market share within the first year of operation. Jordan does get hammered a lot but so far [during the Syria and Iraq crisis] it is hanging in there and holding its own. 56
HOTEL NEWS ME october 2014
is working hard to make this happen, with infrastructure projects being rolled out at tremendous speed and Qatar Airways working hard to connect many places to Doha. Hotel and infrastructure developments go hand in hand – and Qatar is not just building hotels for the World Cup in 2022 and then waiting to see what happens when it’s over; there is a long-term vision for tourism. By the end of next year Rotana will have four properties in Doha and by 2020, we’ll have close to 10 properties across Qatar. Has regional discord made you re-think Rotana’s growth strategy in certain ‘risky’ markets?
I don’t think we have any regrets. Before we enter into any hotel agreement we make sure we tick all the boxes and we will not open a property somewhere if we are going to be shot at all the time. The trick is to work with the right partners and even if we do agree to go somewhere and it ends up being a difficult or dangerous place, we hold back. We don’t just want to be known as the company that goes to difficult places, but rather where there is business to be made, we want to be the first in town, not just to get strong revenues, but to help the people in those countries learn about another industry. We have done it in Erbil and Sudan, and we will do it in Afghanistan. Where to next for Rotana?
Sub-Saharan Africa is a hot spot and we are sourcing opportunities there. Next year we are
ROTANA’S PIPELINE 2014: * Salalah Rotana Resort, Oman – opened * Hili Rayhaan by Rotana – opened * ART Rotana Bahrain * Sedra Residences by Rotana, The Pearl, Doha * Boulevard Arjaan by Rotana, Amman, Jordan 2015 onwards: • Banader Rotana, Bahrain • Burgu Kule Arjaan by Rotana, Istanbul, Turkey • Tango Kule Arjaan by Rotana, Istanbul, Turkey • Amman Rotana, Jordan • Capital Centre Rotana, Abu Dhabi, UAE • City Centre Rotana, Doha, Qatar • Centro Doha, Qatar • Capital Centre Arjaan by Rotana, Abu Dhabi • Rosh Rayhaan by Rotana, Saudi Arabia