Pascal Gauvin, Managing Director, India, Middle East and Africa (IMEA), IHG

We currently have 85 hotels across the Middle East and North Africa and a robust pipeline of 28 hotels, due to open in the next two-three years. As the region continues to grow as a business hub and tourist destination, we are confident of our long term growth in the MENA. Currently, we are operating five brands; InterContinental Hotels and Resorts, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, and Staybridge Suites in the region from our global portfolio of thirteen brands, and in order to accelerate our growth, we are looking at expanding the footprint of our existing brands and also introduce new brands to cater to the market needs. With this direction, in June 2018, we announced the global launch of our new upscale hotel brand, voco, and in July 2018 we completed the acquisition of a luxury brand, Regent Hotels and Resorts – we have been receiving exponential interest from owners across the MENA region for these brands. In order to accelerate our growth ambition, we are also looking at expanding our presence in new markets such Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, in North Africa. We opened our first Holiday Inn in Algeria in 2018 and have already seen the success of the hotel in the first six months to follow. These are interesting new markets for IHG and we look forward to gaining more momentum there. Working with the right owners and forging strategic partnerships is key to our business, and we consistently strive to collaborate with great owners and investors for the long term. With their partnership we are continuously able to bring all our powerful brands to the high potential markets across MENA. This is important as our loyal guests look for our brands everywhere they go and their choice of brand varies as per their stay occasions. Providing them with several options in multiple cities is the key to enabling high value growth.

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