Marriott International Returns to Tunisia
5 December 2011
Read by 1726 persons
Three years after leaving the country, the hotel chain will partner with businessman Samir Jaieb to build a business hotel.
Three years after ending its operations in Tunisia, Marriott will make a grand return. Indeed, while in the past it limited itself to managing hotels, this time it will build a business hotel in Tunis.
In December 2010, Jean Marc Grosfort, CEO of the American hotel group Marriott for the Maghreb and Middle East region, announced the good news of Marriott's return to Tunisia to Slim Tlatli, then Minister of Tourism, in Marrakech, where the two men were participating in a regional event.
In fact, barely a year after leaving Tunisia, the American hotel chain began to show interest in North Africa again. The expansion plan then devised provided for the opening of 29 hotel units – in this region and in the Middle East – in five years.
Thus, over the next three years, Marriott International will open – in 2012 – a hotel (Courtyard) in Egypt, a Ritz-Carlton the following year in Rabat, and two other units (Courtyard and Residence Inn) in 2014 in Algiers.
While including Libya among the targeted countries, after it normalized its relations with the main Western powers in the 2000s and returned to the international community, Marriott International did not identify a specific project there and will certainly wait for the situation in the country to stabilize before formulating one.
Initially scheduled for January 2011, Marriott International's return to Tunisia was delayed by a few months, probably due to the events that the country has experienced in recent months, but not canceled. It should materialize at the beginning of 2012. First in Tunis, with the construction of a business hotel; and later in the suburbs of the capital and in other regions of the country, including Djerba.
Marriott International's return to Tunisia is being done in association with Samir Jaieb. This businessman, who lives between Tunisia and France, controls the Alliance group (JS Promotion, Impériale Immobilière) which, since 1992, has operated in the real estate and hotel sectors in these two countries. Marriott previously managed the Renaissance hotel owned by the Bezrati family. The two parties ended their cooperation in March 2008. Worried about his project following the victory of Ennahdha in the elections of October 23, 2011, Samir Jaieb traveled specifically to Tunisia on November 10 to participate in the meeting of Hamadi Jebali, the future Prime Minister, with operators in the tourism sector. The man wanted confirmation – and he got it – that his hotel would have a liquor license.
This businessman – who says he has “a hotel development program” – having recalled that “alcohol is necessary in a business hotel”, the future Prime Minister clearly indicated that there would be no prohibition in this area.
Moncef Mahroug.
http://www.webmanagercenter.com
Published on December 5, 2011
Posted online on December 5, 2011
Three years after ending its operations in Tunisia, Marriott will make a grand return. Indeed, while in the past it limited itself to managing hotels, this time it will build a business hotel in Tunis.
In December 2010, Jean Marc Grosfort, CEO of the American hotel group Marriott for the Maghreb and Middle East region, announced the good news of Marriott's return to Tunisia to Slim Tlatli, then Minister of Tourism, in Marrakech, where the two men were participating in a regional event.
In fact, barely a year after leaving Tunisia, the American hotel chain began to show interest in North Africa again. The expansion plan then devised provided for the opening of 29 hotel units – in this region and in the Middle East – in five years.
Thus, over the next three years, Marriott International will open – in 2012 – a hotel (Courtyard) in Egypt, a Ritz-Carlton the following year in Rabat, and two other units (Courtyard and Residence Inn) in 2014 in Algiers.
While including Libya among the targeted countries, after it normalized its relations with the main Western powers in the 2000s and returned to the international community, Marriott International did not identify a specific project there and will certainly wait for the situation in the country to stabilize before formulating one.
Initially scheduled for January 2011, Marriott International's return to Tunisia was delayed by a few months, probably due to the events that the country has experienced in recent months, but not canceled. It should materialize at the beginning of 2012. First in Tunis, with the construction of a business hotel; and later in the suburbs of the capital and in other regions of the country, including Djerba.
Marriott International's return to Tunisia is being done in association with Samir Jaieb. This businessman, who lives between Tunisia and France, controls the Alliance group (JS Promotion, Impériale Immobilière) which, since 1992, has operated in the real estate and hotel sectors in these two countries. Marriott previously managed the Renaissance hotel owned by the Bezrati family. The two parties ended their cooperation in March 2008. Worried about his project following the victory of Ennahdha in the elections of October 23, 2011, Samir Jaieb traveled specifically to Tunisia on November 10 to participate in the meeting of Hamadi Jebali, the future Prime Minister, with operators in the tourism sector. The man wanted confirmation – and he got it – that his hotel would have a liquor license.
This businessman – who says he has “a hotel development program” – having recalled that “alcohol is necessary in a business hotel”, the future Prime Minister clearly indicated that there would be no prohibition in this area.
Moncef Mahroug.
http://www.webmanagercenter.com
Published on December 5, 2011
Posted online on December 5, 2011
