Marriott International announced its growth plans for Africa, and intends to grow its portfolio of hotels on the continent to 200 hotels over the next five years
Despite a challenging economic climate and a looming general election, major global entities in the hospitality industry still see South Africa as a big market with strong investment opportunities.
“I think at the moment and for the foreseeable future, South Africa itself is our biggest market in Africa.
Marriott last week opened its 7,000th hotel, in Hong Kong, and is looking to open a further 1,700 hotels across the world in the next three years. “Our estimate is that we will open about one hotel in every 15 hours for the next three years. We employ about 730,000 people around the globe who wear our name tag every day.”
Secondly, he said there was a good reason to believe that the South African government would continue to value tourism, since it was an engine for creating jobs and a major contributor to economic growth. According to Sorenson, Marriott, as a major global company, was interested in building a business that made financial sense and would be sustainable from an economic perspective over the long term.
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