French hospitality firm Club Med and Muriya Tourism Development signed an agreement on Monday to build a 366-room hotel at Muriya’s Salalah beach tourist development complex.
Speaking at the press conference held around the signing, Samih Sawiris, chairman of Muriya, said that Club Med’s role in Salalah’s development would not add a sense of competition at the site, which already has international hotel chains Rotana and Mövenpick Hotels and Resorts.
“The more prime brand names we have for Salalah, the better it is for us and them,” he explained. “Each prime brand name is not added competition, but added [attention] to Salalah, due to better coverage of the project.”
Referring to when the Club Med hotel will be open for business, Sawiris speculated that it “would be around two years and eight months [from now]...We will submit drawings within the next two months. These then usually take around six months to be processed and approved, before we can start building.” The new hotel, Salalah Beach Club Med hotel, will be the company’s first interest in the Gulf region, and will cater to upscale, all-inclusive family holidays, which the brand has become well known for.
Henri Giscard d’Estaing, chairman and chief executive officer of Club Med, said, “This exquisite project on the Salalah coast will be the first Club Med resort on the Arabic peninsula, the only part of the world where [the company] was not yet operating. It will be one of the flagships of Club Med…I am enthralled by the prospect of welcoming Europeans, Asians, and with a special focus on the Khareef region, guests from the Arabic peninsula.”
H E Dr Rajha bint Abdul Ameer bin Ali, Minister of Tourism, said “This partnership is welcomed by the Ministry of Tourism.” Muriya Tourism Development, which is 70 per cent owned by the Egyptian firm Orascom Hotels and Development, and 30 per cent owned by the government-owned Omran, is currently working on four tourist developments in the sultanate. Two of the developments are integrated tourism complexes, which alongside hotels, will have freehold properties available for purchase by both national and foreign individuals.
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