Skift Take
Local development giant Emaar loses five hotels. Marriott gets 3 as it continues to swell its portfolio and Kempinski gets 2, doubling its footprint in the city.
Josh Corder
5 hotels under Dubai’s home-grown business Emaar Hospitality have been rebranded in one swoop today. Properties in prestige places such as The Dubai Mall (the world’s most significant shopping mall) and Dubai Marina have actually been rebranded as Kempinski and Marriott respectively. Abu Dhabi National Hotels (ADNH) owns the properties and says the relocate to strip Emaar branding was a “tactical organization decision.”
The New Hotel Brands Are:
- JW Marriott Hotel Marina, previously referred to as The Address Dubai Marina
- Hotel Boulevard, Autograph Collection, previously known as Vida Downtown Dubai Hotel
- The Heritage Hotel, Autograph Collection, formerly called Manzil Downtown Hotel
- Kempinski The Boulevard Dubai, previously known as Address Boulevard
- Kempinski Central Opportunity Dubai, formerly known as The Address Dubai Mall
The above hotels are now on a franchise model, indicating they are operated by ADNH but utilize Marriott and Kempinski branding. Marriott normally releases the Autograph Collection for such offers– its go-to soft brand for transforming premium residential or commercial properties.
Emaar’s Hotel Organization
The switch implies a loss of about 1,000 hotel rooms for the Emaar portfolio, and it’s uncertain what led to the changes. When the relocation was announced on the Abu Dhabi Stock Exchange in December, Emaar’s input was brief: “Our collaboration with Abu Dhabi National Hotels has been marked by mutual regard and shared accomplishments,” checked out a statement.
Emaar declined to comment for this post.
Emaar is a giant in the Middle East when it concerns retail and property. It is the owner of the Dubai Shopping Center and the Burj Khalifa– the world’s tallest building. But its hotel company has actually constantly been a smaller sized portion of the business.
Emaar is yet to launch its full 2023 financials, however through the 3rd quarter, its hotel organization earned a profit before taxes of just under $107 million (395 million Dirhams). The retail and property businesses both made 10 times that quantity.
The company’s remaining prize properties in Dubai consist of the Armani Hotel, the Palace Downtown hotel and Address Beach Resort. At the end of in 2015, Emaar had 37 hotels in the UAE, GCC and overseas.
Emaar Hotels Outside of Dubai
For the majority of its local portfolio, Emaar functions as both the owner and operator but it had actually offered these five hotels to ADNH in 2018. At the time, Emaar Characteristic’ chairman Mohamed Alabbar said the sale to ADNH for an undisclosed quantity marked his brand-new concentrate on asset-light business.
“We need to focus on the problem of management and hotel management agreements like other worldwide brand names such as Hilton and Marriott,” he informed CNBC Arabia at the time.
At the end of last year, Emaar Hospitality COO Mark Kirby said the company is planning to spread out “Dubai success” overseas.
At the Skift Global Online Forum East 2023 he said: “We take a look at where our (existing) visitors are traveling to and taking a look at those locations. We’ve developed all our relationships based upon the success in Dubai. Dubai started with international brand names, then it started to develop its own.”
Kirby revealed Emaar is in early-stage talks for hotels in the similarity China, Japan and the Maldives.