Italy’s Tonino Lamborghini plans Middle East foray with Dubai hotel

Tonino Lamborghini will also open its first flagship store in Dubai in December, selling all of its products except its furniture and food and beverage.

Tonino Lamborghini's smartphone, the Antares, will sell for Dh14,750 in 10 stores in the UAE. Pawan Singh / The National

Italy's luxury brand Tonino Lamborghini will enter the Middle East next year with a hotel in Dubai.

It will be its first property outside China, where it has three hotels.

Tonino Lamborghini, launched by the son of Ferruccio Lamborghini, the founder of the supercar marque now owned by Audi, will also open its first flagship store in Dubai in December, selling all of its products except its furniture and food and beverage, said the chief executive, Gianluca Filippi. He was speaking on the sidelines of an event to launch its Dh14,750 Antares mobile phone in Dubai yesterday.

The phone, which will be sold in 10 stores in the UAE, will also be available in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Egypt and Jordan and is expected in Lebanon soon.

While Tonino Lamborghini manufactures the phones in Taiwan, its next models and the entire mobile phone manufacturing unit will shift to Germany. It will launch the 4G version of the Antares phone in November globally.

“The UAE is one of the most important luxury markets, and the Gulf countries are important to us,” he said. “We want to set up a sister company to develop our flagship store here.”

Its core business centres around luxury watches, eyewear, jewellery, leather goods and pens.

Less than 15 per cent of its global sales come from the Middle East. Its retail turnover alone was more than €374 million (1.87) in the last fiscal year ending July.

“We expect to double the figure this fiscal year,” Mr Filippi said.

Of the €200 billion global luxury goods market, the Middle East is now the tenth largest with sales amounting to €6 billion, according Bain and Company. And Dubai accounts for 30 per cent of the market in the region.

The Italian company also has interests in hotels and restaurants.

Tonino Lamborghini launched a boutique hotel in the Chinese city of Suzhou in 2012 through a joint venture with the local developer Join-In Group. Three more are expected next year, with another the year after. There are plans to open 40 hotels in Asia, with the first nine in China, according to a Euromonitor International report from 2012.

It expects to enter Dubai as an operator.

“The hospitality market in Dubai is crazy – the growth rate is more than other parts of the world,” he said. “After Dubai it would be Doha and Abu Dhabi; we are under negotiation. There can be an opportunity to go into a hotel management company as a joint venture but not before we open a hotel.”

Tonino Lamborghini is not the only luxury brand that is venturing into the hospitality sector.

Bulgari and Versace are also lending their names to upmarket hotels in Dubai.

In 2011, the luxury British sports car maker Aston Martin said it would enter the property market with its branded villas, hotels, apartments, residences and sports clubs, by developing marina, beach, ski, golf and polo resorts. A Ferrari-branded luxury 250-room hotel and theme park called Ferrari Land are expected to open near Barcelona in 2016. Its existing theme park is in Abu Dhabi.

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