Africa is on track for a boom in high-end hotels and resorts, with top chains such as Marriott International Inc. and Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. backing new developments on the continent.
There are 104,444 rooms under construction, 13 percent more than a year earlier and the most in at least four years, a report by Lagos, Nigeria-based W Hospitality Group shows. High-end developments account for more than three-quarters of the pipeline, according to the study covering 54 countries.
“Chains like to enter a market at the top end,” W Hospitality Managing Director Trevor Ward said in an interview. High-net-worth individuals developing hotels for the first time are also driving growth in upscale and luxury projects because “they want bragging rights and they want to be seen at that level,” he said.
Africa is a burgeoning market for high-end goods and luxury travel driven by strong economic growth, an expanding middle class, increasing consumer-spending power, a rising millionaire population and growing air connectivity. It was the best-performing tourism region in the world in 2024 after the Middle East, with foreign arrivals 7 percent above pre-pandemic levels, according to the United Nations tourism agency.
Jumeirah Group LLC, which operates Dubai’s sail-shaped Burj Al Arab hotel, entered Africa last year with an exclusive-use villa on a private island in Tanzania’s Mafia District and a safari offering in an exclusive Big 5 Game Reserve — a wildlife park with lions, leopards, elephants, buffalo and rhino — in South Africa.
At 55 percent, Africa’s ratio of rooms under construction relative to planned builds is outperforming other markets, W Hospitality said, citing data from Lodging Economics. That’s 10 percentage points higher than the global average. Still, the continent makes up a small share of the global tourism and hotel industries.
About 92 percent of the almost 50,000 rooms under development in North Africa are high-end, with a predominance of luxury projects in Egypt and Morocco, the report shows. The number of room in the pipeline for the region is up 23 percent from a year earlier, outpacing growth of 6 percent in sub-Saharan Africa.
W Hospitality, which provides advisory services to the hotel, tourism and leisure industries, also found that resort projects are increasing at a faster pace than city and airport hotels. That suggests hoteliers are gearing up to accommodate more people who travel for pleasure and recreation.
East Africa’s Tanzanian archipelago of Zanzibar and Boa Vista, an island off Cape Verde in West Africa, are the only two destinations outside of North Africa with resort projects planned for 2025.
In all, the 145 brands developing 577 hotels on the continent only expect about a quarter to open by year end.
The chains, which in most cases aren’t in control of the construction, appear “over-optimistic,” Ward said, noting that only 11 percent of pipeline properties opened in Africa last year compared with a global average of 13 percent.
By Prinesha Naidoo
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