While the Africa Hotel Investment Forum opened the 2nd of October in Nairobi, main hotel brands multiplied their announcements: nine new complexes for Hyatt, new arrival on the plateau of Abidjan for Radisson… U turn of horizon.
The Radisson Blu of Nairobi welcomed until the 4th of October the representatives of the main hotel chains of the continent. This is a main chance to communicate about the expansion which is an ever green theme for this business sector: in May 2016, an STR Global study announced that 50000 new rooms were about to be added to the existing ones from now until 2020.
In 2017, the Hospitality Report Africa 2017 reviewed 365 building projects for hotels, which represents 64231 rooms.
This never ending growth is mainly due to business tourism or the congress one, for which the continent is still under-resourced, and to a large extent by the emergence of a middle class and growing flows between neighboring countries.
“Ghana’s biggest hotel” for AccorHotels
In a press release, AccorHotels group – which acquired in September the Mövenpick group – announces the construction of Pullman Accra Airport City, which should be, with its 363 rooms and equipped apartments, nothing less than the “biggest hotel of the country”. The building, which is expected for 2021, will be first of the brand Pullman in Ghana, where the group is present under the brand Ibis Styles.
According to the confidences to Reuters news agency made by the new general director of the region of the brand, Mark Willis, new announces will probably be made regarding opportunities in Cape Town, Nairobi, Addis-Ababa, Dakar, Abidjan and Kampala.
Hilton launches its brand Curio Collection in Nigeria.
With the Legend Hotel Lagos Airport, installed in international airport Murtala-Muhammed, the american company deploys for the first time in the continent its very top of the line brand Curio Collection by Hilton in Africa.
The company also plans to open this year three complexes Hilton Garden Inn and « at least 16 » during the next five years, « in Kampala, in Ghana, in Malawi, in Swaziland and in many other strategic places throughout subsaharan Africa.»
Taking into consideration all the brands, eight Hilton buildings will open their doors this year, the press release states.
Radisson grows in the lagoon
The brand announced the signature for a Radisson RED Hotel Abidjan Plateau, made of 165 rooms, in the lagoon, in the business capital city of Ivory Coast.
This is the second building for the brand Radisson RED in the continent, after the one of Cape Town.
After this announcement, Andrew McLachlan, vice-president of the company and responsible for the development in Sub-Saharan Africa, evoked other possible destinations for the brand, including of course Dakar, Durban or Nairobi.
The company counts 90 hotels in Africa, meaning about 18 000 rooms.
50% increase in five years for Marriott
Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, South Africa and Mozambique. These are the countries chosen by Marriott to increase its portfolio in the continent – an increase that the company figures, in a statement, to 50% of its current capacity by 2023, which would represent 200 new establishments and 38 000 rooms, and could generate “12 000 jobs,” the statement said.
Marriott specify that the Four Points by Sheraton Nampula, made of 185 rooms and 85 suites, which will open in 2023 in Mozambique, will be its first building in the country.
Hyatt wants to double the stake
Far behind its main competitors, Hyatt Hotels Corporation owns only nine establishments throughout the continent, but it wants to double the figure within 2020.
The announcement was made last week to Reuters by Kurt Straub, vice-president of operations of the brand in Africa and Middle East. This expansion will include of course an Hyatt establishment of 233 rooms in Nairobi and some Hyatt Regency in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) and Arusha (Tanzania).
Source: Jeune Afrique
