Ras Al Khaimah eyes more hotels amid strong tourism growth
Emirate expects hotel capacity to reach up to 20,000 rooms by 2025 as tourism sector expands
Ras Al Khaimah is in need of more quality hotels as it establishes itself as credible leisure activity and adventure destination, said RAK Tourism Development Authority CEO Haitham Mattar on Wednesday.
The authority, which develops and regulates the emirate’s tourism infrastructure and initiates its domestic and overseas promotions, said visitor arrivals to the emirate reached 631,617 while guest nights, occupancy and length of stay also grew in the same period.
“As Ras Al Khaimah draws closer to reaching its one million visitors target by the end of 2018, and charts a path towards attracting 2.9 million visitors by 2025, the need for quality hotel rooms has never been so important,” said Mattar.
“To accommodate this growth in visitors, we are providing potential investors a range of innovative opportunities to develop stand out properties across the emirate,” he said, adding that these opportunities would be showcased at AHIC – the Arabian Hotel Investment Conference which will be held in Ras Al Khaimah.
Germany, Russia, the UK, India and Kazakhstan came in as the emirate’s top five international source markets, with the most prominent growth from Russia. Other major international gains came from the Czech Republic and Poland.
The emirate expects hotel capacity to total 15,000 to 20,000 rooms by 2025 and its accommodation stock to grow by 4,400 rooms over the next three years with a mix of 3 to 5-star properties.
New hotels scheduled to open in the emirate include Anantara Mina Al Arab Ras Al Khaimah Resort, due early 2020 and InterContinental Ras Al Khaimah Mina Al Arab Resort, due in 2019.
Other hotel brands marking their entrance in the emirate include Marriott, Sheraton Four Points, and City Max, while both The Cove Rotana Resort and Bin Majid Beach Resort are being expanded.
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