•The world’s largest hotel chain, Marriott International has the largest number of pipeline hotels and rooms, followed by Hilton hotel and French multinational hospitality company Accor.
•Resorts also saw rapid growth, with a 32 per cent increase compared to 2023. Zanzibar stood out as a particularly strong performer in this context.
Image: ALPHONCE GARI
Kenya has dropped to the seventh position in Africa among countries with the highest number of hotel rooms under development by international hotel chains.
The latest survey by Lagos-based W Hospitality Group, and the Africa Hospitality Investment Forum (AHIF) shows that the country dropped two positions from fifth recorded in 2023.
Kenya has 31 hotels with a total of 4,268 rooms in the pipeline with an average room size of approximately 138 square feet.
North Africa continues to dominate in new projects with Morocco and Egypt together comprising almost 31 per cent of the total for the 54 countries on the continent.
Egypt, Nigeria, Morocco, top the continent on the number of hotel rooms under development followed by Ethiopia, Cape Verde, Tunisia, Kenya, South Africa, Algeria and Ghana closing the top 10.
“When analysed according by country and by the number of rooms in their pipeline, the top ten countries represent 69 per cent of the total hotels in the survey, and 74 per cent of the rooms,” reads the report in part.
The world’s largest hotel chain, Marriott International has the largest number of pipeline hotels and rooms; followed by Hilton hotel while French multinational hospitality company Accor comes third.
Over the past year, there have been significant trends in the regional hospitality sector, with North and sub-Saharan Africa experiencing a strong growth of over nine percent.
Additionally, there was an increase in the number of very large hotels, with the average size of the top 10 hotels growing from 723 rooms in 2023 to 770 rooms in 2024.
Resorts also saw rapid growth, with a 32 per cent increase compared to 2023. Zanzibar stood out as a particularly strong performer in this context.
The resort pipeline in Zanzibar expanded from seven resorts with 983 rooms in 2023 to 14 resorts with 2,048 rooms in 2024.
According to the report this growth indicates a high level of confidence in the appeal of these beautiful Indian Ocean islands.
Egypt continues to lead the country table, with almost 26,250 rooms in 109 hotels, but is streaking ahead of the pack, with well over three times the number of rooms in second-placed Nigeria and third-placed Morocco.
With continued signing activity (19 hotels with about 5,200 rooms in 2023) Egypt now accounts for 28 per cent of the total pipeline.
The hotel chains have deals signed in 41 countries in Africa. West Africa leads with 14 countries (out of a total of 18), followed by the Southern & Indian Ocean sub-region where there are 11 countries with pipeline development activity.
This year we have lost Libya and Sudan (the single projects in each country were cancelled) but gained The Gambia.
French brand Accor, opened almost 300 rooms worldwide last year, Hilton’s number was almost 400, and Marriott International achieved almost 560 opening.
But of those, only two of Hilton’s totals were in Africa, with four for Marriott International and six for Accor.
Between the three of them, they opened 73 hotels and resorts (6 per cent of their 2023 achievements) in Africa in five years, split pretty equally between North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.