Hospitality industry: Avari Hotels set to expand

Company management highlights growth strategy in saturated market.

LAHORE:

The global hospitality industry is expanding, creating opportunities for many chains to expand their businesses. In Pakistan this industry, though in crisis, is expanding primarily in hilly areas and highly populated cities. With local expansion plans in place, the leading names of Pakistan’s hospitality industry are now eagerly working to expand their chains globally.

Avari International, a well known name in Pakistan’s hospitality industry currently operating five projects in Pakistan and two in Dubai, is also following the same path.

With competition getting tough each passing day in Pakistan mainly due to the induction of international hospitality names in main cities of Pakistan like Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, and local chains planning to establish hotels in other highly populated cities, Avari  International decided to introduce their hospitality projects in all major cities of Pakistan.

Avari international has already announced its projects in Sialkot, Gujranwala, Multan, Bhurban and Lahore. In addition, the group is also planning to introduce projects in Faisalabad, Islamabad, Sargodha and Murree, for which land acquisition and designing is currently on. However, right now the management is trying to attract customers to its operations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) .

“We are committed to expanding our business both locally and globally. We have already upgraded our previous properties to international standards, and our new projects will also be of high class, said Ramzi Assily, Cluster General Manager, Avari Dubai Hotels and Apartments while talking to The Express Tribune.

Assily is in Pakistan these days to invite Pakistani investors and travellers to make existing and upcoming projects of Avari international in the UAE a success story, as he believes that Pakistanis are ranked number two in terms of their clientage in Dubai.

“There are around 600 hotels and apartments in Dubai with around 81,000 rooms and for us Pakistani clients are second mainly due to the brand reorganization in Pakistan”, Assily said.

Avari International’s management is focusing on Expo 2020, for which Dubai is the front-runner for hosting. The expo will continue for six months, with roughly 17.5 million visitors and 180 exhibitors, which will boost the hospitality industry, and create some 400,000 jobs.

Assily believes that this would be the perfect opportunity for a Pakistani hospitality name to market itself.

“We want Pakistan to be number one in terms of clientage in Dubai. Currently we have two properties in Dubai but we are committed to expanding throughout the UAE”, he said.

Apart from hotels, the management is focusing on private apartments both in Pakistan and the UAE. Roughly half of the upcoming projects of the group will be apartment projects as the trend of renting apartments instead of hotels is rising.

“Both businesses are good but we feel that now the demand for apartments is going up. We as a hospitality name believe in providing what our clientage is more comfortable with and we are planning our future projects accordingly,” said Assily.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 30^th, 2013.

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