By Sachin Kumar
DOHA: To reinforce its presence in Qatar, Rotana is planning to open two more hotels in Doha by 2018. Addition of two hotels will increase its total room keys count to 2,000 from 1,229 currently.
“All of our brands will be available in Qatar by 2020. We are growing very quickly in Qatar. Six years ago we had no hotels in Qatar and today we opened our fourth hotel here,” Omer Kaddouri (pictured), President and CEO of Rotana told The Peninsula, talking on the sidelines of opening ceremony of company’s new hotel.
The company yesterday announced the opening of Centro Capital Doha- its fourth hotel in Doha.
“With the opening of Centro Capital Doha, our inventory in Doha has increased to more than 1,229 rooms, with plans to open two additional brands — the Plaza Rayhaan Doha and Downtown Arjaan Doha. These are scheduled to open in 2017 and 2018 respectively and will increase Rotana keys in Doha to nearly 2000,” Kaddouri said.
The company has also plans to expand its footprints in GCC and other regions.
“We plan to open 100 hotels by 2020 across different markets and by that time we should have about another 100 hotels in our pipeline. These hotels will be across the board. They will be all our five brands and in the region and beyond the region. We are now starting to open hotels across Africa, India and we are working very hard to sign hotels in Europe as well,” said Kaddouri. “So we are becoming stronger in other regions apart from our key markets,” he added. The company will soon open hotels in Turkey, Congo, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
“Rotana is working hard to be a major player in the global tourism sector, especially with several hotels being launched in the past year. Going forward, we have extensive expansion plans in Africa and Europe and we have recently successfully opened our first hotel in Istanbul, Turkey. During the course of this year, we will launch hotels in Turkey, in Kinshasa, Congo, Saudi Arabia and Amman” said Nasser Al Nowais, Chairman of Rotana Hotel Management Corporation.
“With the current launch, the total number of hotels managed by Rotana has gone up to 101 hotels, where 56 of them are fully operating and 45 are under construction. Rotana Hotel Management Corporation currently employs around 14,000 employees, and this number will reach 29,000 once work on all under-construction hotels are completed,” said Al Nowais.
The Peninsula
