For the Wyndham Hotel Group in the Middle East, 2012 was a very exciting year.
“From a growth perspective, not only did we continue to expand Ramada, our established midscale brand, with five new openings across the region, two of these hotels were added through management agreements, allowing us to further demonstrate our credentials in this arena,” said Bani Haddad, regional vice president for the Middle East and Africa, Wyndham Hotel Group.
In addition, the company made several significant announcements which will see the expansion of other brands as well as the introduction of new brands into the Middle East region over the coming years.
In October, Wyndham announced the signing of the Wyndham Grand Manama in Bahrain scheduled to open during in the first quarter of 2014. This property, located in the heart of the Bahrain Bay development, will be a fantastic addition to the Wyndham Hotels and Resorts brand which has already proved popular in Doha.
“We also announced two major development deals with strong partners in Saudi Arabia. One is planned to bring 20 Super8 hotels to Saudi highways and the other is for 10 Days Inn properties in the Kingdom over the next five and seven years respectively. This will mean that we are the only hotel company in the region covering all market segments from luxury through to midscale, economy and budget,” added Haddad.
Speaking about business Haddad said the trend in 2012 was very positive versus the prior year.
“The strongest growth came from markets such as Dubai and Saudi Arabia with more than 10 per cent RevPAR growth year over year. Source markets are very different from one city to another but with significant inventory in the holy cities of Saudi Arabia, religious tourism is key to us. In Dubai, in addition to the western European market, Eastern Europe has become a major market feeder and we are also seeing a rise in inbound traffic from China.”
Looking ahead, Hadded added that the UAE and Saudi Arabia will remain the biggest growth markets in the Middle East, though hotel performance will continue to be affected by pockets of political instability in the region as travellers choose to stay away from affected areas. On the whole though, Wyndham Hotel Group is very optimistic about the prospects within the region and we’re very much looking forward to another successful year in 2013.