Coral on track to operate 50 hotels worth $6b

Dubai: At a crunch time, when most businesses are cutting costs and laying off people or shutting doors, Dubai's home-grown hospitality brand, Coral, which has just completed five years in business with a portfolio of 15 hotels, is expanding business aggressively, with 15 new hotels to be added by the end of this year.

"We are going to open hotels this year in Lebanon, Morocco and Egypt and two hotels in South Africa before the World Cup football next summer," Shaikh Mohammad Bin Faisal Bin Sultan Al Qasimi, chairman and chief executive of Manafa Holdings and Vice-Chairman of Hospitality Management Holdings (HMH), which owns Coral, Corp and Ecos brands.

"We believe in the long-term vision that made Dubai a global destination and an important player in the region and will continue to expand."

Industry officials and analysts are upbeat about the tourism sector's growth potential, saying it is a matter of time before the industry recovers.

The Arab region continues to remain a favourite among investors and operators in the tourism and hospitality sector, in particular those in the budget segment.

"Recent numbers issued by Jones Lang LaSalle [estimate] that 680,000 new hotel rooms will enter the market next year in the greater Middle East and North Africa region (Mena) - compared to an original prediction of more than 800,000. It seems that many are jumping on the budget hotel bandwagon that is sweeping through the GCC," Jonathan Worsley, co-organiser of the Arabian Hotel Investment Conference, said.

HMH is investing Dh10 million in a new branding campaign to spread the awareness of the hotel and re-position it in the market. The company yesterday unveiled the new branding and marketing campaign, ahead of the Arabian Travel Market which takes place in May.

Michel Noblet, Chief Executive of HMH, said, his company is on track to open 50 hotels by the end of 2010.

"Despite the slowdown, we are on track to open 15 more hotels this year that will take the size of our portfolio to 30 by the end of this year," he said.

"Next year, we will open 20 more hotels ... we have already signed agreements with investors, taking the number of hotels under our management to 50, as we promised.

"The total development cost of these 50 hotels would exceed $5 billion [Dh18.35 billion] to $6 billion."

The company plans to operate 100 hotels by 2012, despite the current economic slowdown.

"We are very optimistic despite the current market situation. Our hotels are registering 72-75 per cent occupancy.

"We believe in the long term outlook and growth of the region. That's why we will continue to expand aggressively in the coming years," Noblet told Gulf News.