The recently opened
Rotana Salalah marked the company's Oman debut in March.
Rotana has announced that Africa will be a focus for development
over the coming three to four years and revealed last week that the company
signed its first East Africa project in Tanzania.
Other Africa projects currently under construction are the
250 key Nouakchott Rotana in Mauritania and the 300-room Tripoli Arjaan by
Rotana in Libya, both of which are set to open next year.
The company currently has four operating hotels in Egypt and
one in Sudan and signings have been made for Morrocco, Algeria, and now
Tanzania.
CEO Omer Kaddouri revealed that the company’s next move will
be to expand its presence across the Sub-Shahara region.
Kaddouri said: “We are looking to get busier in the
Sub-Sahara region now, toward South Africa and we’d very much like to be
present in Mongolia and Mozambique so I think over the next three to four years
we’ll have some nice announcements to deliver about Africa; Africa is a focus
for us.”
Other areas of focus for the company are Saudi Arabia, where
there are seven signed properties to open in the next three to four years, and
Iran where there are four properties signed and set to open by 2017.
Additionally, Kaddouri highlighted India as a focus and
revealed that the company had meetings with Indian developers last week to “hopefully
tie something down”.
The CEO also revealed recently that the company is aiming to
have the presence of each of its brands in every major city in the Middle East
by 2020.
This year the Salalah Rotana opened in Oman on 18 March
marking the company’s debut in the Sultanate. Prior to that, the Hili Rayhaan
by Rotana opened in February in the UAE city of Al Ain and seven more hotels
are to open this year in Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar.
The UAE-based
company, which started off in 1993 with just two properties, currently has a
pipeline of 50 hotels to open by 2020.
Kaddouri, who took over as Rotana CEO after the company's
co-founder Selim El Zyr stepped down in January, revealed that in the same year
he expects that Rotana will have another 100 hotels in the pipeline.
