SAUDI ARABIA As many as six additional hotels could be under development in Saudi Arabia by Fairmont Raffles Hotels International by 2012, a regional executive says.
The company, which in August opened Raffles Makkah Palace and Makkah Clock Royal Tower, a Fairmont hotel, sees near-term potential for further luxury hotel growth in the kingdom. “We think by the end of 2012 we will have another five or six hotels, hopefully,” Mohammed Arkobi, vice president and managing director of Fairmont Raffles in Mecca tells HotelierMiddleEast.com. “They will be all around the kingdom, everywhere—Riyadh, Jeddah, the Eastern Province, a lot of places. We are talking to the owners and negotiating things and hopefully we can do more, and I think we are there, hopefully.”
The hotels in Mecca are popular with pilgrims and religious tourists, but Arkobi says other properties in Saudi Arabia would primarily target business travelers.