Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts has announced 11 new hotel projects across nine countries bringing the company’s total number of operating and planned hotels worldwide to 100. The new hotels are in France, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Thailand. The upscale hotel company of Swiss heritage now has 69 hotels in operation and 31 in development of which nine will open this year.
“We have always believed in growth, but at a sustainable pace. In every region from Europe and Africa to the Middle East and Asia we have carefully consolidated our developments to maintain a balanced portfolio distribution that ensures decision-making is effective, resources are efficiently utilised and development is sustainable,” said Jean Gabriel Pérès, president and chief executive officer of Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts.
In April 2012, Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts will take over a 298-room upscale Red Sea property in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt; in Morocco the company will reopen a new 380-room hotel in Marrakesh in 2014 following a multi-million-euro renovation this year. An architecturally stunning low-rise hotel will open in the Tunisian desert oasis of Tozeur in 2013 following a major refurbishment, while a 255-room hotel is presently undergoing a multi-million-euro refurbishment on the white beach of Djerba island in Tunisia. In China, a new 350-room hotel in Chifeng, Inner Mongolia, China will open in 2015 while a 380-room Mövenpick Resort & Spa, Phoenix Island, Sanya, will be launched in 2013.
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Elsewhere in Asia, the Mövenpick Resort & Spa, Jimbaran will be the company’s first hotel in Indonesia when it opens in 2014, in Malaysia, a 250-room resort will be based on Pantai Pandak Beach on the South China Sea coast and be launched in 2015. The company’s entry into Bangladesh will be heralded by the opening of a 280-room resort on the sandy sea front of Cox’s Bazar and a 26-villa boutique-style resort in Samoeng, Chiang Mai, Thailand.
In Europe, the company will manage its first hotel with 282 rooms in Paris’ exclusive suburb Neuilly, expected to open in January 2013.
Within the GCC, three hotels are expected to open during 2012. These include The Mövenpick Hotel Apartments the Square Dubai featuring 180 serviced apartments, which will be located in the surroundings of Al Mamzar in Dubai’s eastern district of Deira. The five star Mövenpick Hotel & Residence Jumeirah Lakes Towers will offers 168 rooms and 307 apartments as well as a private residence club and the located on the crescent of the Palm Jumeirah, the 293-room, six restaurant destination Royal Amwaj Resort & Spa.
Toufic Tamim, vice president sales & marketing, Middle East, Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts says: “Given the challenges of 2011, our results have remained positive, though lower than 2010. Overall, occupancy fell by four per cent versus 2010 and RevPar fell by two per cent across our hotels in the Middle East. On a positive note our hotels in Saudi Arabia experienced an overall growth of 10 per cent in occupancy and four per cent increase in average rate. In addition our hotels in the UAE had an increase of 20 per cent in occupancy and two per cent in average rate versus 2010.”
Markets like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait remained the most resilient for Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts while Dubai saw an upturn in both room occupancies and average rates, despite the injection of a substantial amount of room supply. Tamim says: “The Arab Spring caused a shift of demand for leisure guests and conferences from some countries in the Middle East such as Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt towards Dubai.”