InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) were the first international hotel company in the region when they opened their first hotel in Lebanon more than 50 years ago. Today with 76 hotels, representing 20,000 hotel rooms, IHG is the biggest international hotel company in the region.
The company plans to maintain this position over the next few years, with plans to open 26 new hotels and add 6,700 hotel rooms to the market over the next five years.
Pascal Gauvin, chief operating office, Asia, Middle East and Africa, InterContinental Hotels Group quoted 2012 as the year of strong trading and continued growth.
“We’ve added a number of great hotels to our portfolio, including Crowne Plaza Jordan Dead Sea Resort & Spa, Holiday Inn Express Bahrain and Crowne Plaza Doha – The Business Park to name just a few.
“The Middle East benefits from strong demand drivers and has a very healthy inbound and outbound travel market so the region continues to grow as a travel hub. We are looking forward to yet another successful year in 2013.”
“Across the region, intra-regional travel continues to play a key role with much of the growth coming from the domestic market – 50 per cent of our guests come from within the region,” he said.
“The Mice market is incredibly strong and makes for 60 per cent of our guests. The biggest percentage of international guests came from the UK, key markets in Europe and the US. China is one of our biggest new source markets.
“In 2012 we saw the number of Chinese guests across the Middle East and Africa region grow by more than three per cent,” added Gauvin.
India is another key growth market for IHG. The group recently announced it has signed 13 new hotels in India, boosting its existing pipeline in the country to 47. The new hotels will create more than 2,600 new jobs for local people in addition to the 3,400 already working at hotels from the IHG family of brands and corporate offices in India. IHG currently has 13 hotels in ten cities across India including Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai.
“Over the next decade we will continue to see tremendous growth across the Middle East region with room for growth and investment in all markets. Saudi Arabia and the UAE represent two of our most important markets.”
In 2015, IHG will open their first hotel in Ras Al Khaimah – InterContinental Ras Al Khaimah followed by the first Crowne Plaza Resort Ras Al Khaimah.