The UAE-based hotel management firm Rotana plans to double its number of hotel rooms in the country.
The group, which manages 32 properties with 8,700 rooms in the UAE, plans to double its domestic room inventory in five years in anticipation for the rise in demand from Dubai’s hosting of Expo 2020.
Next year, Rotana will open the 257-room Hili Rayhaan in Al Ain, and its Arjaan Capital Centre in Abu Dhabi is expected to open towards the end of next year, said Omer Kaddouri, Rotana’s executive vice president and its chief operating officer.
“There is still a lot of growth to happen in the UAE, especially with Expo 2020,” he said. “There were a lot of hotels that were in waiting and investors were not completely sure of whether to go ahead with them or not, and we are starting to get lots of calls from those investors wanting to complete the development of their projects within Dubai.”
As of the end of last month, the UAE had 109 hotels in the development pipeline, accounting for 31,262 rooms, according to the industry research firm STR Global.
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