Guy Hutchinson, COO of Rotana, revealed that Rotana has plans to open nine new hotels in the UAE over the next five years at its 2016 GCC Roadshow.
Together, these hotels will add 3,598 keys to the company’s existing 9,584-strong room count in the UAE only, and will take the total number of Rotana properties in the UAE to 44 by 2020.
According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, investments related to travel and tourism in the UAE touched AED21bn in 2015, or 6.2% of the overall investments, and this figure is expected to rise by 9.7% this year and by 5.1% annually over the next 10 years to AED37.8bn in 2024.
In addition to the UAE, at the roadshow, Rotana announced the opening of five new hotels in KSA in 2016, three new hotels in Qatar and one new hotel in Kuwait by the end of 2018, in addition to the nine properties announced for the UAE market.
“With demand from tourists increasing, there is renewed investor confidence in the UAE’s hospitality market. Abu Dhabi is projected to post a healthy RevPAR growth in 2016, while Dubai, which is set to add a further 28,000 hotel rooms by 2018, too is expected to witness greater occupancy rate in the year ahead,” Hutchinson said.