BERLIN — The current situation in the Middle East highlights a necessity for travel in, out of and around the region, said TUI Blue Hotel's Wesam Okasha.
Okasha, managing director of TUI Blue Hotels and head of global development, Asia, Greater China and Europe, Middle East and Africa, is a resident of the United Arab Emirates. Speaking to CoStar News Hotels at the 2026 International Hotel Investment Forum EMEA, Okasha said that the experience now being seen in the UAE and the Middle East shows clearly there is no way to conduct proper hospitality and tourism without security.
He said hotels are suffering not only in the UAE and the Middle East but also in parts of Africa close to Israel, but companies such as the ones he runs, part of vacation- and travel-package giant TUI, have the good fortune and ability to move tourists — if they did not ask for full refunds — to other vacation destinations that provide equally excellent stays, even if they are not in the places the guests originally had in mind.
“We’ve seen a huge boom in our Zanzibar destinations, and then you have for sure the North African countries like Tunisia and Morocco. They are really booming right now.”
Okasha said portfolio and geographical scale have become even more important, with episodes such as the crisis in the Middle East underlining those requirements.
Asia-Pacific is one area of growth.
He said the TUI brands have now been in China and APAC for almost half a decade now, and the firm’s hotels have started to open there.
In 2029, TUI will open its first top-end Robinson-branded resort in China's Yangtze River region, and there are plans to expand in China, Japan, Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries with several of the parent company’s hotel brands.
“[Our] investors in Asia want to grow with us all over the place, and they have the money for it. … They are very flexible. Once they have got the trust that there is something very serious behind this, then they open all the doors,” he said.
He added investors are equally interested in destinations such as Senegal and Zanzibar where TUI-partner tour operators are heavily involved in chartered flights, as they see the commitment and the security that gives to their investments.
TUI Blue also is branching out in safari lodges, Okasha said, which he said is an organic extension of his luxury Mora hotel brand in such places as Zanzibar.
“We are having some advanced discussions, some very exciting projects in Tanzania and also in Kenya in the top notch of destinations for safaris in the Serengeti National Park, in Ngorongoro, and also in the Maasai Mara.
“It is going to be a combination of three different types of lodges. You have lodges with direct access to reserves, where you can see the top five (animals) directly in front of your room; then you have the fenced lodges, and then there are those … on three different levels — entry level, upper-midscale and then very luxurious ones,” he said.
For more of Tui Blue Hotels' Wesam Okasha’s insight and comments on such subjects as hotel clustering, the immediate future of the Middle East hotel industry and investment and openings in Oman, watch the video above or listen to the embedded podcast.