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Marriott seeks 20 000 rooms in SA

Within five years, Marriott International would like to more than double the number of hotel rooms it has in South Africa.

Alex Kyriakidis, Marriott International Middle East and Africa managing director, this week said the company currently had 9 400 rooms in South Africa, but by 2022, it planned to increase that number to 20 000.

In 2014, Marriott – the world’s largest hotel company – bought Protea Hospitality Group for R2 billion.

Kyriakidis said that since the acquisition, Marriott had spent R210 million on integrating the group and jacking up Protea to Marriott’s standards and requirements.

The Protea brand had been endorsed as one of Marriott’s 30 brands and is now known as Protea by Marriott.

This week, the company announced that, together with the Amdec Group, which is a property developer and investor, it would build three hotels in Cape Town, along with two properties it is developing in Johannesburg at Melrose Arch. These five hotels would result in a total investment of more than R3 billion. During the construction phase, about 8 000 jobs will be created and once the hotels are completed, more than 700 new hospitality jobs will be created in Cape Town and Johannesburg.

The three Cape Town hotels will add more than 500 rooms, while the two Johannesburg hotels, which are set to open in 2018, will add 350 rooms.

James Wilson, Amdec CEO, said that R1.4 billion would be spent on the two Melrose Arch properties and R1.6 billion on the three new Marriott hotels in Cape Town.

Once the five properties were built, Amdec, which already owns property worth more than R10 billion, would retain ownership of them and would enter into a 30-year management contract with Marriott.

Kyriakidis said that Marriott was looking at South Africa’s secondary and tertiary cities for opportunities. Earlier this week, Marriott unveiled its first hotel in sub-Saharan Africa, in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali.

The launch and sod-turning ceremony in Johannesburg this week was attended by Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba and US ambassador Patrick Gaspard.

Mashaba said that he was grateful that Marriott had considered Johannesburg as a place to invest.

Currently, Marriott has 25 000 rooms in Africa across 19 countries and the company employs 40 000 people.

In Africa, the company was constructing 60 hotels, which would add 16 000 rooms at a cost of about R2.8 million a room for a total cost of about R44.5 billion.

Marriott is planning to expand its African presence to 27 countries with more than 200 hotels and 37 000 rooms by 2025.

Marriott International CEO Arne Sorenson said: “Africa is particularly important to Marriott International’s expansion strategy because of the continent’s rapid economic growth, expanding middle class and youth population, as well as the increase of international flights to the continent.

“With more than 850 million people in sub-Saharan Africa alone, there are enormous opportunities.”

Last month, Marriott bought Starwood Hotels and Resorts, which made it the world’s largest hotel chain, and increased its presence in Africa.

Following the acquisition, Marriott operates or franchises more than 5 700 properties and owns 1.1 million rooms in more than 110 countries.

At the same time that Marriott announced its local deals, it also revealed signings of new properties in Kenya, Egypt and Mauritius.

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