DUBAI, United Arab Emirates—Standing in the middle of the suspension bridge that connects the 17th floors of the two-building Marriott Executive Apartments Dubai Creek, Diane Mayer is giving a bird’s-eye history of Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
To the north, she gestures toward the sweeping vista, is “old” Dubai—old being a relative term considering the majority of development occurred within the past 40 years. The buildings are mostly nondescript, 15-story boxes in a blur of browns and tans.
The VP and global brand manager for Marriott’s International’s Residence Inn brand then focuses the crowd’s gaze to the other side of the bridge.
“And this would obviously be ‘new’ Dubai,” Mayer says, letting her companions take in the architectural wonders that have sprouted out of the desert beyond the Dubai Creek within the past decade. Most prominent among them is the Burj Khalifa, which at 163 floors reaches so high that its spire gets lost in the haze of the 90-degree afternoon.
Old and new. Past and future. Marriott has played in both spaces in Dubai. After opening the JW Marriott Hotel Dubai in 1993, the company has since developed 10 properties in the emirate. Its most recent was also one of its most ambitious—the 684-room JW Marriott Marquis Hotel Dubai. The property’s 72 floors make it the tallest free standing hotel in the world.
Now Marriott is doubling down with an aggressive plan to leverage the continued economic boom in Dubai and other key markets in the Middle East/Africa region by bolstering its select-service and extended-stay presence.
Focused expansion
“This region has targeted select service and extended stay in particular as major growth vehicles,” Mayer said earlier at a morning press briefing during a trip to the emirate last month.
Of Marriott’s 13,254 total rooms in the pipeline in the Middle East/Africa region, approximately 12% are either select service or extended stay.
The primary brand drivers are Marriott Executive Apartments, a 5-star extended-stay product whose guests typically stay for months to years, and Residence Inn by Marriott, the company’s 4-star offering for guests staying for weeks to months.
“The guests that we’re really seeing in both of those brands are predominantly international travelers coming in working on infrastructure and specialized projects,” explained Jeff Strachan, Marriott’s regional VP of sales and marketing.
Rampant infrastructure development in the region typically requires the long-term placement of key individuals to drive key projects, he said. Those assignments are rarely permanent, which means businesspeople are more likely to live temporarily in an extended-stay property than rent or buy.
Marriott Executive Apartments has performed exceptionally well in that space, with occupancies routinely hitting peak capacities, Mayer said. There are 23 properties in the global portfolio with the majority concentrated in the Middle East/Africa and Asia.
Residence Inn, meanwhile, is more of a newcomer. While executives are targeting 44 properties in the Middle East/Africa within the next seven years, there is only one Residence Inn open at present: The 80-suite Residence Inn Manama Juffair, Bahrain.
Two additional Residence Inn hotels will open in the region during the next two years: the 78-suite Residence Inn Jizan, Saudi Arabia, and the 147-suite Residence Inn Algiers, Algeria.
Flexing to fit
Dubai and its sister emirates are obvious targets for development, Strachan said.
“The next real challenge is to move into Africa, and that’s where we see enormous opportunity to grow with the brands, and then into the secondary cities in Saudi Arabia,” he said.
“You need to turn toward where cities are using their resources to build infrastructure.”
Target countries include Kenya, Nigeria, Algeria and Morocco, Strachan said.
The challenge, Mayer said, is developing product that fits the need of such disparate populations. A guest in Kenya, for example, will have completely different cultural expectations than one staying in Dubai.
Marriott executives are responding with flexible kits of parts and guidelines to make the development process as seamless as possible. The projects will be nearly turnkey in their designs, with Marriott providing the plans and procedures so owners won’t have to.
But within those plans exists room for investors to adapt as they see fit.
Residence Inn, for example, will soon have new design guidelines that allow owners to flex based on the market. In areas with more leisure travel, the properties might have more guestrooms with two bedrooms to accommodate families. Hotels in business centers, on the other hand, could feature more one-person studios, Mayer gave as an example.
“Different regions have different requirements, but the core of the brand stays the core of the brand,” she said. “It’s almost like an accordion that can flex in and flex out depending on what the market needs.”
Editor’s note: Marriott International paid for all travel expenses to Dubai, including amenities at the JW Marriott Marquis Hotel Dubai. Complete editorial control was at the discretion of the HotelNewsNow.com editorial team; Marriott had no influence of the coverage provided.