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Cairo "Almasalla News "- REPORT FROM MOROCCO—The major hotel chains are staking their claims in Morocco, lured by the country’s cultural assets and government-backed tourism industry.
Accor, for example, expects to open 20 hotels within the next five years in the key cities of Casablanca, Tangier, Rabat, Marrakech and Agadir. The majority of those will be in the economy segment, though the company also is developing two Sofitels and one Pullman in Marrakech, said Christian Rousseau, COO of Accor Morocco.
A further two Ibis, two Novotel and one Sofitel already are committed and will undergo construction during 2012 for openings in 2013 or 2014, he added.
The company intends to develop a network of 50 hotels under the Ibis and Ibis Budget brands by 2020.
Accor’s development plan includes new builds for standardized brands in the economy and midscale segments, though upper-tier brands such as Mercure, MGallery and Pullman lend themselves more to conversions, Rousseau said.
“Accor has a long-term strategy in Morocco and is investing through a listed company in Casablanca called RISMA. Accor is a shareholder of this hotel owning company, up to a 33.5% stake,” he said. “In the meantime, Accor is also operating the hotels through a long-term management contract with RISMA.”
Meanwhile, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, which operates a Hyatt Regency in Casablanca, is also developing a Park Hyatt in Marrakesh and is looking for opportunities to develop the company’s Hyatt Regency and Hyatt Place brands, Peter Norman, senior VP of acquisitions and development, EMEA, wrote in an email.
The company is in a position to take advantage of opportunities for both new builds and conversions, he said.
“The deals we have concluded to date in Morocco are management agreements,” Norman said.
Several other major chains, including Hilton Worldwide, have expressed interest to develop in the African coastal country.
Most hotel development is concentrated in Morocco’s major urban markets, such as Marrakech, said Sophie Perret of HVS Consulting and Valuation.
Supply in these markets, for the most part, has not yet caught up to demand, though there’s a lot of product to absorb in the pipeline, she said.
There were 347 hotels comprising 43,562 rooms in the country’s existing supply, according to STR Global, sister company of HotelNewsNow.com. An additional 38 hotels comprising 7,108 rooms were in the total active pipeline as of 30 September.
Momentum in Morocco
“For the last three or four years there’s been an incredible amount of projects announced, particularly in Marrakech,” Perret said.
The spat of announcements isn’t surprising, she said. Morocco is a short-haul market from Europe, and it boasts a wealth of cultural attractions and variations in geography, such as mountains and desert.
“There’s quite a bit you can do as a tourist,” Perret said.
And then there’s King Mohammed VI’s Vision 2020 plan. Announced last year, the plan is an attempt to leverage the country’s assets to double visitor numbers to 18 million by 2020.
The mere presence of the vision, of any vision, provides a level of comfort from investors, Perret added.
Hyatt’s Norman echoed those remarks.
“The government in Morocco has been very supportive of the hospitality industry with a clear focus where it wants to build and position the industry and country going forward into the future,” he said.
Investing amid uncertainty
While a slew of developments have kept the Moroccan pipeline churning, the country did not escape the Arab Spring and broader political and economic turmoil unscathed, Perret said.
“Investors are not very enthusiastic at the moment,” she said. “It certainly does bring much more uncertainty. To start with, as an investor you want to know who your bank is. If it’s not a local African bank than probably they’re not interested. If your project is a new development, it’s probably even more risky, so it’s going to be difficult.”
It helps the country has a relatively stable government—for now. But Perret said a political upheaval involved not so much a matter of “if” as it did a matter of “when.”
“It’s expected that the situation is going to implode at some point,” she said, adding citizens will eventually push for democracy.
Accor’s Rousseau was a bit more optimistic.
“There will be challenges coming from inside the country with the evolution of the Moroccan society,” he said. “The country is going through a smooth political evolution with constitutional reforms initiated by His Majesty the King Mohammed VI.”
Source: hotelnewsnow
