Ritz- Carlton to open new hotels in Rabat, Marrakesh

Dubai: The Ritz Carlton-Hotel Company saw its business in Egypt drop by half but will continue work on its hotel overlooking Tahrir Square to open in the first quarter of 2014, a senior company official said.

The luxury hotel operator on Wednesday announced two new properties in Rabat and Marrakesh in Morocco as part of its focus to grow its portfolio in North Africa.

The Ritz-Carlton in Rabat, a 120-room hotel in Royal Golf Dar Es Salam, is under construction and due for completion by 2014, said Bob Kharazmi, the company’s global officer of worldwide operations, at a press conference during ATM.

Work on the hotel in Marrakesh, located at the Jenan Amar Polo Fields upscale community 20 km from the city centre, will begin in the fourth quarter of 2013. It is scheduled for completion in the third quarter of 2016.

The Ritz-Carlton is planning to open 25 properties globally in the next three years, raising the number of its hotels 84 to 109 worldwide, Kharazmi said.

In 2013, it plans to open five new hotels with two in China, one in Kazakhstan, Aruba in the southern Caribbean and Bengaluru in India, he said.

Ritz-Carlton currently has nine hotels in the region and hopes to grow further in North Africa. “It is a location that attracts a lot of travellers and Dubai is the company’s fastest growing market in the region followed by Qatar, Turkey and Bahrain, he said.

Asked about the impact of Arab Spring on the hotels operations, Kharazmi said: “The instability helped other markets like Dubai. We will continue with strategic growth. Our focus is to continue construction and Cairo is an example of that.”