SAUDI ARABIA: Citymax Hotels To Open 15 Hotels The Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia

Citymax Hotels, a UAE-based hotel chain, wants to expand into Saudi Arabia to cash in on rising demand for three and four-star hotels, according to a top executive.

The company, with three properties in the UAE, looks to open 15 mid-market hotels over the next five years across the kingdom, including Jeddah, Riyadh and secondary locations such as Buraidah, Abha and Yanbu, said Russel G.H Sharpe, its chief operating officer, in an interview on Wednesday. “Tourism will grow in Saudi Arabia, there is a need for both leisure and business hotels. The west coast of Saudi Arabia has a number of locations where Citymax hotels would be ideal,” he said.

The hotel chain is already in discussions with potential joint venture partners to enter the Saudi hospitality market, he said, declining to give further details. It is considering having hotels linked to shopping malls and near airports in the kingdom.

Saudi Arabia last month announced national reforms aimed at boosting revenue from non-oil sectors like tourism and mining.

Elsewhere, Citymax, part of Landmark Group, is eyeing hotels in Dubai’s Al Qusais and International Media Production Zone (IMPZ) areas and an entry into Indonesia, according to Sharpe.

It has three hotels with a total of 800 rooms in the UAE pipeline — all scheduled to open in 2017. These will be located in Al Barsha and Business Bay in Dubai and Ras Al Khaimah. Citymax also expects to open a hotel in Alexandria, Egypt, in the fourth quarter of 2017.

In terms of the company’s performance, occupancy rates edged up to 92 per cent in the first quarter of this year, from 90 per cent during the same period in 2015. However, room rates were down 6 per cent year-on-year, Sharpe said.

A combination of more hotel rooms and fewer tourists from certain markets have put pressure on room rates in Dubai, which were down 10.1 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of this year, according to a report from research firm STR.

Sharpe expects the company’s profitability in the current financial year ending June to be “levelled out” compared to the previous year due to the pressure on room rates.

Citymax recently repositioned the brand to appeal more to millennials and plans to increase its marketing budget for the next financial year (July 2016-June 2017) by 20 per cent, focusing on digital marketing campaigns, he said.

“As we move into 2020, customer needs are changing. We have to adapt the product to customers’ needs to ensure we’re still competitive,” he said.

UAE: Dubai Retail Giant Suspends Sales Of Trump Products

One of the Middle East’s largest retailers, Landmark Group, has stopped selling Trump-branded products, following the Republican presidential candidate’s controversial call to ban Muslims from the United States.

The Dubai-based firm signed a deal in February this year to sell items from the Trump Home collection to customers in the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia through its Lifestyle outlets.

However, the group said on Tuesday it would now remove all products from its shelves.

“As one of the most popular home decor brands in the Middle East, Lifestyle values and respects the sentiments of all its customers,”

“In light of the recent statements made by the presidential candidate in the US media, we have suspended sale of all products from the Trump Home décor range.”

Trump’s call to ban Muslims from entering the US was the most dramatic response yet by a candidate to last week’s shooting spree by two Muslims who the FBI said had been radicalised. His comments were widely condemned by representatives from both sides of America’s political spectrum.

Trump also has a partnership with Dubai’s Al Tayer Group, which opened two Trump Home by Dorya galleries in the UAE in June. The firm called the billionaire real estate mogul’s recent comments “unfortunate” but did not indicate that it would be withdrawing from the partnership.

“The statement Mr Trump made on the campaign trail is unfortunate. Given his diverse business interests in the region, we hope that he will reconsider his stand,” the firm said, in a statement send to Arabian Business.

However, the firm which Trump has perhaps his most significant ties in the region – Damac Properties – refused to criticise the comments.

“We would like to stress that our agreement is with the Trump Organisation as one of the premium golf course operators in the world and as such we would not comment further on Mr. Trump’s personal or political agenda, nor comment on the internal American political debate scene," Damac senior vice president Niall McLoughlin said.

Damac is working with Trump to build two golf courses in Dubai.