GOLDEN Tulip senior vice president and managing director, and Flamingo Hotel Management president, Amine Moukarzel is currently responsible for both the Golden Tulip properties in the region as well as the Louvre brands after Starwood Capital’s acquisition of the Golden Tulip brand.
The company, which manages a portfolio of seven distinctive and complementary brands ranging from one to five-stars and with more than 1,000 hotels in 40 countries, is one of the leaders in the global hotel sector and is continuing its expansion across the world with the Louvre Hotels Group aiming to open a total of 80 hotels in 2011, mainly in Europe and in Asia.
Speaking to TTN on the sidelines of the recently concluded Arabian Hotel Investment Conference 2011, Moukarzel said: “The plan in the region is towards diversification of the Louvre and Golden Tulip brands. We see great opportunity to further develop the Golden Tulip brands in the region and remain confident of reaching our targets of 100 hotels for the Golden Tulip brand in the region and 50 hotels for the Louvre brands.
“The strength of the Louvre Hotels complements the Golden Tulip portfolio taking it up to more than 1,000 hotels, and today we are the second largest hotel company in Europe and eighth largest worldwide.
“We now have a complementary platform where we can carry out stronger marketing programmes to help create better marketing and awareness in the industry, which entail better technology, stronger deliverables and stronger loyalty programmes.”
Already 20 openings have been carried out since January, including seven hotels in France, four in India and three in Brazil and in the long term, the group will particularly focus on high growth countries such as India, Brazil, China, Ukraine and Morocco.
“Closer, in the region, Saudi Arabia sees a lot of potential for expansion and drives a huge demand for more two-and three-star hotels. The UAE remains an important market and, in the Levant, Tunisia, Syria and Lebanon are showing potential for growth,” added Moukarzel.
The company, which initially set a target of 65 hotels by 2012, now hopes to take this number to 70. “We believe that if we contract a group of hotels, we might go way above this target,” he added.
However, he is quick to agree that the political tensions in the region have affected the company since the beginning of the year. “Rates are down, occupancies are low and there are concerns on development plans. I strongly believe that the affected markets, namely Libya and Egypt, will come back stronger – it’s all a matter of being patient and we have no choice but to remain idle till we see some positive changes. I continue to stand by my vision to open a new hotel in the region, every month,” he said.
“Together with our presence, know-how and owner-relations, the Golden Tulip portfolio puts us on the top as leaders in the industry.”
And the position has been further strengthened with the redesign of the company’s corporate website www.goldentulip.com. The website is modern, attractive and matched to customer expectations, meeting the demands of an international clientele with content in nine languages and individual sections for each of the three Golden Tulip brands.
Golden Tulip will also celebrate its 50th anniversary at the beginning of 2012. “The strength of the brand lies in staying top of the game with our deliverables, our systems, our business drive and our transparent owner-relations. We are committed to delivering to our owners by driving revenue to the properties, controlling expenses and ROI and simply being transparent, and this will continue to be our biggest strength,”
added Moukarzel. n