Six Continents Hotels will open the first Holiday Inn hotel in Qatar before the end of this year.
The 136-room Holiday Inn Doha, located close to the city centre on Rayan Road, is one of three new Holiday Inn properties which will open in the Middle East this year. "We're delighted to be establishing another new Holiday Inn destination in the Middle East," said David Atkinson, area director, sales and marketing, Holiday Inn, Six Continents Hotels, Middle East and Africa. "The new hotel will reflect the many outstanding qualities offered by the new generation of Holiday Inn properties we're developing across the region. It will offer business and leisure travellers a very impressive standard of service, and a full range of facilities, at a highly attractive rate." The eight-floor Holiday Inn Doha will feature a specialty restaurant, coffee shop, and lounge bar. Facilities for meetings and other events include a 350 sq m multi-purpose room and two small meeting rooms. The hotel also has a business centre, and extensive car parking facilities. It will become the second new property to be opened by Six Continents Hotels in Qatar in two years, the first being the Hotel Inter-Continental Doha. Six Continents Hotels will also open the Holiday Inn Resort Half Moon Bay in Saudi Arabia in the summer, as well as the Holiday Inn Resort Tuba in Egypt towards the end of this year. Also in Egypt, the Holiday Inn Mediapolis will open in the summer of 2003 as part of the City Stars Mediapolis project. The new hotels are part of the group's expansion plans in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. Six Continents Hotels owns, manages or franchises leading hotel brands including Inter-Continental Hotels and Resorts, Crowne Plaza Hotels and Resorts, Holiday Inn, Express by Holiday Inn and Staybridge Suites, around the world. In the financial year ending September 30, 2001, Six Continents Hotels said it has 69,000 rooms in the pipeline to join its global portfolio. More than 20,300 of these new rooms are planned for Europe, Middle East and Africa. The expansion plans include two strategic targets: First to create market-leading distribution of Holiday Inn and Express by Holiday Inn in key economies in Western Europe. The second strategic development target is to develop Inter-Continental and Crowne Plaza hotels in key cities and resort destinations around the world.