Hilton and Marriott plan SA hotel expansions

Two large international hotel groups are planning expansions into South Africa following the success of the World Cup.

Hilton Worldwide is setting up a development office in Cape Town and intends to open hotels in all the main cities in this country.

It is headed by Derek Anderson, the newly appointed vice-president of development for sub-Saharan Africa, who will be looking for local partners to develop new hotels or to manage existing hotels.

The second hotel group, Marriott International, is in talks for a possible hotel in Johannesburg and is looking for other opportunities in South Africa.

Both have several brands within their groups, which they plan to introduce here.

In addition to its top five-star Hilton hotels, Hilton Worldwide intends to bring Doubletree, described as "an upscale brand just below Hilton", to South Africa. Later it may introduce its "mid-scale" Garden Inn brand, which Deepak Seth, the vice-president of development for southern Europe and Africa, said had one restaurant in each hotel and "limited service". He said it had already proved successful in countries including Italy, India and Turkey.

Paul Ansah, Marriott's vice-president of international development in west and southern Africa, said that in South Africa his group intended to focus on Johannesburg and Cape Town.

Ansah had heard of an oversupply in Cape Town and was "trying to get a sense of what the situation there will be like in two years' time".

He thought its up-market full service brand would be successful in Cape Town and later its three star Fairfield Inn chain might be introduced to this country.

The group would also like to introduce its successful Courtyard brand but this name was already in use by the City Lodge group.

Business Report

Posted at 09:56AM Jul 28, 2010 by Editor in Commercial  |