Mecca hotel opening presents unique hurdle for overseas company

Fairmont Hotels and Resorts is confident that its biggest hotel project, the Mecca Clock Royal Tower, has good prospects, though it presented some unique challenges.

Fairmont Hotels and Resorts is confident that its biggest hotel project, the Mecca Clock Royal Tower, has good prospects even though it presented the Canada-based company with some unique challenges. Non-Muslims are not permitted to enter Mecca, which means that many Fairmont executives, including its president, will not attend the grand opening of the hotel, expected in the third quarter of this year. At 577 metres, the clock tower is one of the tallest buildings in the world and bears a striking resemblance to London's Big Ben. The 858-room hotel is being developed by the Saudi Binladin Group.

"There's built-in demand because every Muslim is supposed to do the Haj at some point in their lives and there is no product there of this quality in this location," said Tom Storey, the president of Fairmont. But the project also presented some challenges for the Toronto-based company because of the status of Mecca, the holiest city in Islam. Thus Mr Storey visited Dubai this week to meet the senior executives working on the hotel, which overlooks Islam's holiest site, the Masjid Al Haram - Mecca's Grand Mosque - at the centre of which stands the Kaaba.

"Unless you're Muslim you can't go there," Mr Storey said. "You can apply to the king of Saudi Arabia for a special dispensation to go as a non-Muslim, but the king has to approve it, and you can only go for three or four hours. You cannot stay overnight there, and this is a once-in-lifetime opportunity. You can get a special approval once under unique circumstances and that's it."

There have been other challenges, too. The hotel's management team has based itself in Jeddah and is dispatching eight recruitment teams to as many as 14 Muslim countries to recruit 2,600 Muslim men to work in the Fairmont and the neighbouring Raffles and Swissotel, which are held by the same parent company. Fairmont relies on its Muslim vice president and general manager of the project, Mohammed Arkobi, to relay details.