Hill International has landed a two-year contract to oversee construction of the new Rixos Saadiyat Island Hotel in Abu Dhabi.
The company has a 65 per cent stake in a joint venture with EHAF Consulting Engineers that will provide design and construction supervision for the five-star, 374-key hotel.
Its contract is worth Dh13.8 million.
Mohammed Al Rais, the regional president for Hill’s project management group, said: “This five-star hotel will be an important tourist attraction on fast-growing Saadiyat Island.”
The award is the second major hospitality contract picked up by Hill in the Middle East in the past two weeks. The company also recently announced that it would help to deliver a new Marriott Hotel within the diplomatic quarter of Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh, under a two-year, US$2.7m deal. The 38,000 square metre hotel will have a conference centre, ballroom, 80 hotel rooms and 140 serviced apartments.
A CBRE report for this year’s first quarter stated that occupancy rates in Abu Dhabi hotels dropped by 2 per cent to 75.7 per cent. This was despite a 9 per cent increase in passenger growth through Abu Dhabi International Airport. Average room rates also fell, leading to a 20 per cent year-on-year decline in revenue per available room – to Dh375 per room per night, from Dh500 in February last year.
“The drop in performance was mainly attributed to growth in room supply, which has heightened competition,” said Matthew Green, CBRE’s UAE head of research and consultancy.
mfahy@thenational.ae
