UAE real estate major Nakheel recently revealed that it would opens the doors of its Djibouti Palace Kempinski hotel, a $130m five star hotel in the small East African Island, by the end of the current year in early December 2006.
The 337-room hotel and conference center will be operated by hotel management chain Kempinski, according to Gulf News. The $130m is reportedly being invested in the hotel in two phases.
"The hotel will open to 100 per cent occupancy in the first week of November," stated James Wilson, chief executive officer of Nakheel Hotels and Resorts.
Among the first guests in the new hotel and conference center will be leaders of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa).
Kempinski currently runs ten hotels in the Middle East and Africa, and reportedly has plans to open seven hotels in the region by 2009 according to industry reports. Its latest property management project is with Dubai’s Majid Al Futtaim Group company MAF Hospitality for a five-star hotel in Bahrain scheduled to open in 2008. It is Kempinski’s second management contract with MAF after the opening of the Kempinski Hotel at Mall of the Emirates earlier this year.
