Saw strong recovery in occupancy and room rates in 2010
Dubai-based Jumeirah Group, the operator of luxury hotel chains across the world, is set to open nine new hotels this year, almost doubling its portfolio from 10 in 2010 to 19 by the end of 2011, one of its senior-most officials has revealed.
Gerald Lawless, Executive Chairman of Jumeirah Group, said that the group saw a strong recovery in 2010 in terms of occupancy and room rates, and that the chain is all set to double its portfolio this year.
"We will open nine hotels in total, if everything goes well, in 2011, which will be very interesting because it will take us from about 10 hotels to 19 hotels," Lawless told HotelNewsNow.com in an interview.
"I think the look and feel of Jumeirah by the end of this year is going to be totally different than what it was at the beginning of the year if everything opens according to plan," Lawless added. "So far we've opened three [hotels in 2011]," he said. "Earlier this year we added on a beautiful new hotel, the Jumeirah Zabeel Saray, which is actually on The Palm of Jumeirah [in Dubai]," said Lawless. "We've opened our first of two in the Maldives... We've opened the Jumeirah Himalaya in Shanghai," he said.
"Later in the year, we will open another hotel in Dubai and a very large complex in Abu Dhabi with a beautiful new hotel just across the road from the Emirates Palace Hotel, so it's in a very nice part of Abu Dhabi," he elaborated.
"We will also take over a hotel that should be completed by the end of the year and then we will open in the beginning of 2013 in Majorca in Spain. So we've plenty to do for the coming year and it's really exciting," he said.
"Our strategy generally is to develop on a global basis through an asset-light management contract base. But we are willing, where appropriate and where necessary, to look at other options or other ways of doing it - if we have to put it against our equity or if we have to use some, in certain cases ... loans for the hotels," Lawless said.
The Jumeirah executive also said that tourism, particularly in its home base in Dubai, was witnessing a strong resurgence. "Toward the end of 2010, right about November, particularly in Dubai, we saw a really strong resurgence - coming back almost to the levels that we enjoyed around 2007, early 2008. We had thought that we wouldn't really see average room rates coming back to the same levels that we had previously. But there were periods in the first quarter of this year where we actually exceeded our best average room rates of 2007, particularly in our Madinat Jumeirah complex," said Lawless.
"We are greatly encouraged that these kinds of numbers are coming back, and it bodes well for the future that we will be able to get back to levels that we have had in 2007 and early in 2008 - though supply continues to grow very rapidly in Dubai, which from a consumer point of view is very good. The competition continues and we have very high quality hotels with really competitive rates."
© Emirates 24|7 2011
