Marriott leads Africa’s hotel growth

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Marriott International tops this year’s table for the most planned new hotel rooms under construction in Africa, according to the influential annual hotel pipeline survey by W Hospitality Group.

Details of the report will be one of the key discussions at the Africa Hotel Investment Forum (AHIF), which the Kenyan government recently announced will return to Nairobi in October this year.

Marriott International currently has a development pipeline of 93 new hotels comprising 17,708 rooms in Africa.

Almost 50% of those rooms – 8,587 – are already under construction.

The Hilton chain is ranked second, with 6,352 rooms under construction, and the Radisson Hotel Group is third with 4,840 rooms currently being built.

Most of fourth-placed AccorHotels’ deals are fairly new, signed in 2016 and 2017, and therefore only 36% of rooms in its pipeline are under construction.

The W Hospitality Group ranking for individual hotel brands has Radisson Blu with the largest number of rooms under construction – beating the Hilton brand by over 300 rooms.

Hilton has two other brands in the top 10, Hilton Garden Inn and DoubleTree by Hilton – boosted by the chain’s $50 million Hilton Africa Growth Initiative.

In this year’s pipeline report Africa’s performance in 2018 shows growth, but it is more muted than in recent years – 25% growth in the number of pipeline rooms in 2015; 19% in 2016, and 13% in 2017, much the same as the 13.5% growth in 2018.