Cristal and StayWell team up for hotels expansion in Middle East

The Abu Dhabi-based hotelier Cristal Group will partner with StayWell Hospitality Group of Australia to expand the Park Regis and Leisure Inn brands throughout the region, the companies said yesterday.

Cristal will use StayWell’s brand on hotels in the Middle East while also adopting the Australian company’s sales and marketing platforms to increase operations.

The partnership will bring a combined portfolio of 13 hotels in the region with further plans for expansion to meet an expected increase in demand.

Kamal Fakhoury, Cristal’s chief executive, said that both groups were now present in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Erbil in northern Iraq. Over the next year, the hotel brand will increase offerings in its existing markets as well as expand to new destinations in Amman, Jordan and the Saudi cities of Abha, Riyadh and Mecca. “The expansion plan is very healthy and we expect to increase the portfolio to 20 properties within the next five years,” he said.

The Staywell chief executive, Simon Wan, said that the expansion into the UAE was a result of this year’s opening of the Park Regis Business Bay and Park Regis Boutique Jumeirah, to be followed by the opening of Leisure Inn Jumeirah and Park Regis Mecca next year.

“The synergy and opportunity offered by this strategic alliance will combine the global strength of StayWell with the local knowledge of Cristal enhancing further development of both companies’ goals globally, not just in the Middle East,” he said.

Abu Dhabi and Dubai had a combined total of about 20 ­million hotel guests last year, a 5 per cent increase from the previous year, according to numbers from the tourism authorities of the emirates.

Tourism and travel made up 8.7 per cent of the UAE’s GDP, totalling Dh134 billion in 2015. Sultan Al Mansouri, the Minister of Economy, said that this will increase at a rate of 5.4 per cent annually over the next decade to reach Dh236.8bn by 2026.​

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