HMH – Hospitality Management Holding has signed a management agreement for the UAE’s first ECOS-branded hotel, an environmentally-friendly, high-tech property to be located in Dubai South, the company announced on Monday.
The 320-key ECOS hotel will be located in Dubai’s Al Furjan area, and is slated to open in time for Expo 2020 Dubai.
According to the company, the hotel is seeking LEED certification and will strive to be paperless, and as “efficient as possible” with water and electricity. Additionally, HMH is currently “in discussions” regarding the installation of solar panels at the property.
Speaking to media at the Arabian Travel Market in Dubai, Brett Schafer, the CEO of Faisal Holding – which owns HMH along with Manafa – said that he believes the hotel “is very much along the lines of the future, where we [HMH] believe the hospitality industry is going.”
“It’s sustainable and eco-friendly, as well as experiential for a guest,” he said. “It will incorporate all the latest in digital technology and of course sustainability as far as energy is concerned.”
Additionally, Schafer said that the hotel’s location was chosen with Expo 2020 and the large-scale development of Dubai South in mind.
“[The hotel will be] close to the new Expo site, plus Dubai World Central, as well as the whole expansion of DWC, Logistics City and so on,” he said. “We see a tremendous demand in that area.”
Aboudi Asali, the CEO of HMH, said that the hotel is also targeting travelers looking for mid-market accommodations during their stay in Dubai.
“This is a value-proposed hotel, which is a trend now in Dubai,” he said. “We’re really going to that lower segment to capture a new target market.
Asali added that he hopes that the hotel will serve as a model that will help allow HMH to expand the ECOS brand across the region.
“When we tell many owners about ECOS, they say they like the idea but would like to see the property,” he said. “We believe that once they [other owners] have seen what we can offer and how we can operate such a hotel, we can really expand very fast.”
HMH says that the company is in the final planning stages and hopes to begin construction within the next three months.
The management agreement brings the number of hotels managed by HMH to 18.
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