Ethiopia stands fourth in hotel development, a survey by W Hospitality Group, a Lagos-based firm, makes known.

The survey stated a total of 75,155 branded rooms in 401 hotels are in development across the whole of Africa – a net increase of almost 11,000 rooms in the pipeline, 17% up from 2018. There has also been a record of 43 international and regional hotel contributors this year, covering 54 countries in north and sub-Saharan Africa, and the Indian Ocean islands.

Egypt, Nigeria, Morocco and Ethiopia are the four top hotel development nations in Africa, Egypt leading the file with 15,158 rooms in 51 new hotels.

The top-line figures show that in North Africa the rooms’ pipeline is up 2.3% on 2018, and down 3.8% in sub-Saharan Africa – largely due to several of the chains “cleaning” their pipelines, deleting deals that they believe are not going to happen.

Ethiopia, has seen another increase in pipeline deals, up from 31 hotels in 2018, signed by international chains such as Accor and Hilton, as well as by regional chains such as aha and Latitude. Best Western and IHG each signed two hotels in 2018.

The majority of these deals, 27 hotels with 84 percent of total rooms, are in Addis Ababa.

The top ten countries this year account for 69 percent of the total hotels and 74 percent of the rooms in the survey.

W Hospitality Group further said full details shall be revealed and discussed at the Africa Hotel Investment Forum (AHIF) to be held in Addis Ababa, September 23 – 25 2019, organized by Bench Events. The Group went on to say this is the leading conference of its kind in Africa, connecting business leaders and fueling investment in tourism projects, infrastructure and hotel development across the continent.

Source: W Hospitaligy Group Website