Dubai: Movenpick Hotels and Resorts has signed contracts to operate seven new hotels in Dubai as the company pursues expansion in the Arab region to match the ongoing economic boom.
The new hotels will become operational by April 2009, Movenpick's Middle East vice-president for sales and marketing Toufic Tamim told Gulf News in an interview.
Owned one-third by Saudi billionaire Prince Walid Bin Talal, the Swiss-based hotel management firm has also launched a similar expansion drive in Saudi Arabia.
In addition to the seven hotels and resorts in Dubai, Movenpick has signed up for a resort in Ajman to open by April 2009.
Two properties will be located on the Palm Jumeirah Island and one hotel will be part of Ibn Battuta Shopping Mall.
Other hotels will be in Deira, Dubai Pearl, Jumeirah Beach and the Laguna area opposite Dubai Marina.
Tamim said none of the Movenpick hotels will compete with each other in price or location.
"They have different markets. Some of them will rely on leisure tourism coming from Europe, like those on the Palm, and some will rely on the conference business from Jebel Ali like the Ibn Battuta hotel," he said.
"This expansion gives us presence in the key areas of Dubai. But we still lack two hotels in the city to complete our expansion," Tamim said.
Movenpick is in negotiations with potential investors in Abu Dhabi to launch its first property in the capital.
"We are extremely keen to enter Abu Dhabi. We are actively pursuing opportunities and we are in negotiations with multiple investors in Abu Dhabi to open one or two hotels in Abu Dhabi," Tamim said.
He said the company is not late in entering the Abu Dhabi market because "development plans are just being launched."
"In the next two years we foresee three contracts in Abu Dhabi to serve our feeder markets in Switzerland and Germany, to use both Dubai and Abu Dhabi for leisure and business," he said, adding that other emirates were not part of the ongoing expansion focus.
"Our main focus is now on Abu Dhabi. Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah are of interest but they are not part of our current focus. But we would like to be there," Tamim said. Saudi Arabia will have six new Movenpick hotels, while potential sites are also being looked in Muscat and Amman.
"We are opening six hotels in Saudi Arabia on top of eight hotels in the UAE. The growth is equal in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. We are witnessing a second economic boom in the Arab world and the Saudi market growth is part of it," he said. Movenpick will open 19 new hotels across the region by 2009, creating 6,036 rooms and 93 new restaurants and bars. At present it operates 28 hotels with an inventory of 7,624 rooms and 159 restaurants.
Asked if Movenpick's relationship with Prince Walid's Kingdom Hotel Investments (KHI) was helping the company in its huge growth, Tamim said most of the new developments were owned by individual investors in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
"Out of the 19 hotels under development, 15 are owned by individuals and Kingdom has only minority share in three. Kingdom helped us enter Dubai three years ago with the Bur Dubai hotel but the seven new hotels have nothing to do with Kingdom Hotels," he said.
In May this year KHI bought a hotel in Phuket to be managed by Movenpick.
"We cannot deny the fact that Kingdom has helped our expansion. But we also help them by expanding ourselves independently," Tamim said.
Having been helped by KHI in entering the Asia-Pacific, Movenpick is now chasing new management contracts in the region.
