Movenpick Hotels and Resorts recently signed contracts to operate seven new hotels in Dubai and another in Ajman, while announcing similar expansion plans for Saudi Arabia.
Two of the Dubai hotel will be located on the Palm Jumeirah Island, others will be located in Deira, Dubai Pearl, Jumeirah Beach and the Laguna area opposite the Dubai Marina, while yet another will be part of Ibn Battuta Shopping Mall, according to Gulf News.
The new hotels both in Dubai and Ajman are set to become operational by April 2009.
Movenpick's Middle East vice-president for sales and marketing, Toufic Tamim, said that none of the Movenpick hotels will compete with each other in price or location.
"They have different markets. Some of them will rely on leisure tourism coming from Europe, like those on the Palm, and some will rely on the conference business from Jebel Ali like the Ibn Battuta hotel," he said.
"This expansion gives us presence in the key areas of Dubai. But we still lack two hotels in the city to complete our expansion," Tamim said.
Tamim added that Saudi Arabia will have six new Movenpick hotels, while potential sites are also being looked in Muscat and Amman.
"We are opening six hotels in Saudi Arabia on top of eight hotels in the UAE.
The growth is equal in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. We are witnessing a second economic boom in the Arab world and the Saudi market growth is part of it," he said. Movenpick will open 19 new hotels across the region by 2009, creating 6,036 rooms and 93 new restaurants and bars. At present it operates 28 hotels with an inventory of 7,624 rooms and 159 restaurants,” he said.
One-third of the Swiss-based Movenpick hotel management firm is owned one-third by Saudi billionaire Prince Walid Bin Talal.
