More opportunities for meeting with ADNEC

Operators and investors will have more opportunities to be involved with the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Company's (ADNEC) planned marina development.

ADNEC business development director Sanjay Tanner said the project would soon undergo masterplanning and details - such as whether or not ADNEC would retain ownership of one or several properties - were still being finalised.

The company would adopt a similar policy to awarding management contracts and working with investors as it did with the nearby Capital Centre project, he added.

In that complex, as many as nine hotels will be operated by a variety of management companies, including Rotana, Hyatt and Starwood.

Operators and investors were selected to provide a spread of accommodation levels, Tanner added, noting that in the past several hotels in Abu Dhabi had dramatically increased their prices to coincide with major exhibitions and events.

The marina development will be nearby the Capital Centre project.

"There will be at least two resort based hotels [in the marina development]," Tanner said.

"We are announcing the master plan later this year. It's a typical mixed-use development with a commercial district, a leisure district and the hotels."

"We are about to start looking at operators - there will be a good possibility of ADNEC having some interest in those properties (as owners). The key thing for us [when deciding on Capital Centre partnerships] was making sure the investor had the right product for our site. There are synergies between our site and the operation of the hotel."

He said another important element of deciding partners was to look at their track record in the region and make sure they were experienced investors who had other properties already operating.

"We need to make sure that these projects are finished on time and will be ready for the projects we are launching," he said.

"[This project] will become the economic engine of Abu Dhabi."

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