Rocco Forte Hotels has confirmed its first hotel in the Middle East will open in Abu Dhabi on November 7.
The 281-room, wave-shaped Rocco Forte Abu Dhabi hotel has been developed in conjunction with Tourism Development & Investment Company (TDIC) and the UAE-based Al Farida Investments Company.
It features a modern Chinese/Japanese restaurant, a poolside South American bar, and grill and Italian a la carte restaurants, Hotelier Middle East reported on Tuesday.
The 28,000 sq m hotel also offers seven meeting rooms, a business centre and a ballroom with a maximum capacity of up to 500 seated guests.
Sir Rocco Forte, chairman of the European luxury hotel brand, said in May that he plans to add more Middle Eastern hotels to the five properties his company currently has in the pipeline.
As well as Abu Dhabi, it will also add properties in Jeddah, Marrakech, Cairo and Luxor.
“There’s a Beirut property which will be announced shortly,” Sir Rocco told Arabian Business. “In Doha, again, there are so many hotels with the World Cup coming up. I’ve looked at one or two things there, but the right thing hasn’t come up.”
The chairman said that Oman was “a possibility”, as was Riyadh and further hotels in Egypt.
“The thing about Dubai is that there are so many hotels already here,” he added. “There were one or two things that I looked at, but the right opportunity didn’t come along. “I think, in due course, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t come to Dubai.”
Rocco Forte Hotels currently runs 12 hotels in Europe, including Brown’s Hotel in London and the Hotel Savoy in Florence.
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