The New York-listed hospitality company Wyndham Worldwide plans to diversify its Wyndham Hotel Group division into the luxury segment from its traditionally active budget and midscale offerings in the UAE.
The chain, which has 13 hotels in the UAE, expects to open an upscale 500-room Wyndham Dubai Marina next year.
“Almost 76 per cent of the supply of hotels in the UAE is in the five-star segment and we want to capture a share of that segment,” said Bani Haddad, the regional vice president of Wyndham Hotel Group.
The development pipeline in the UAE and its next-biggest market in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, is still dominated by the midscale range.
It will open a second Ramada hotel in Abu Dhabi with 120 rooms early next year and a Tryp property in the Tecom area with about 600 rooms by the end of 2017.
“Typically if you take the consumer base around the world, for the biggest part it is midscale and budget,” Mr Haddad said. “Moreover, budget hotels are cheaper to build and faster to build.”
The chain has about 7,400 properties across the world, mostly in North America.
The focus of hotel investment in Dubai is on building budget hotels to accommodate a projected 20 million visitors in 2020.
The company wants to open nine Days Inn properties and 20 Super 8 properties in Saudi Arabia in the next six years.
It has eight properties in Dubai and two in Abu Dhabi, mostly under brands such as Ramada and Howard Johnson.
ssahoo@thenational.ae
Follow us on Twitter @Ind_Insights
