It is perhaps the most-noticeable aspect of ITB Berlin that the most-elaborate displays were centred around the countries and sectors of the Middle East and North Africa.
Walking through the hallways and rooms of Messe Berlin, the ones that attracted the most selfies and caused most people to stop and take in were those of Saudi Arabia and Dubai, with their high, LCD video screens showing off the best, most attractive parts of those nations.
Eddy Tannous, COO of Rotana Hotels, was taking note of those displays and the efforts put forward to enhance and build the tourist sectors in the Middle East.
“Travel in the MENA region,” he said, “is seeing double and triple-digit growth in comparison to 2019. And the area that is most talked about is Saudi Arabia, and that’s down to the huge transformation it’s seen in recent years. There are unfortunate events in that region, but we like to look at how it’s resilient. We’re super, super positive on it in terms of growth."
Tannous said that if you compared the ITB Berlin of 2024 with that of fifteen years ago, there was a marked difference: a decade-and-a-half before today, the push was being led by the tourist and hotel industries. But now it is being led by the destination authorities.
“It’s huge,” he said. “They are so present here.”
He believed it began when Dubai began to turn its attention to opening itself up to the rest of the world, at the end of the 2000s.
“I think of it,” he said, “as a huge success that everyone has been seeking to replicate, because when you see something like that, it becomes a thing that you also want to do. I think the deciding factor in it was when the Crown Prince of Saudi determined that he wanted to get tourism to eventually make up 12 per cent of GDP. That’s a huge step for a nation whose economy was based, thirty years ago, on oil.”
“And,” he said, “tourism is the best opportunity to market your country, particularly if you want to position it differently.”
Close to home, Tannous said that Rotana has been seeing tremendous growth in its business. Officially, the company has 49 hotels in the pipeline, with thirty-three of them scheduled to open before 2030. It recently opened a new venue in Istanbul and there are two other scheduled to open doors soon in London. It has also begun business in Georgia and there are talks regarding Uzbekistan.
“What we like to do is look at market share,” he said. “Even if we’re below market share, it’s good to see growth. That’s the positive story, and the position of most of our hotels and properties is a healthy one.”
He concluded: “It’s an exciting time for us. Growth is the thing that summarises Rotana as a company, and that’s been fuelled by performance. 2023 was a record year, and our revenue so far in 2024 is 12-15 per cent up on 2023. That’s healthy. And it gives us the opportunity to expand.”
Exclusive LIVE coverage of ITB Berlin 2024 by our own team of journalists and bloggers. This is strictly a 4Hoteliers.com exclusive feature. Reproduction in any shape or form without explicit permissions is prohibited.
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