To support and drive the rapid growth of its African portfolio, Radisson Hotel Group has reinforced its development team with the introduction of senior development professional Ramsay Rankoussi, Vice President, Development, Middle East, Turkey & French Speaking Africa.
Ramsay has been with Radisson Hotel Group for over five years, initially overseeing the growth of the company in the Middle East and Turkey and now leading the development activities across French Speaking Africa. He is supported by Erwan Garnier, director, development French & Portuguese speaking Africa. Together, they seek to accelerate the introduction of all Radisson brands in the region with a focus on key capital and economic cities.
Rankoussi said: We have ambitious plans for this important market and it is imperative that we have the right resources in place to support our growth. This means communicating effectively with owners and investors, as well as providing first-class levels of expertise as we establish long-term relationships with our business partners in this market. We are proud that each of our development team members fits this criterion for success."
"We will continue to execute our five-year strategy with our expanded team, creating scaled hotel growth in key cities and resort locations across Africa during 2019," said Andrew Mclachlan, Senior Vice President, Development, sub-Saharan Africa, Radisson Hotel Group.
Mclachlan added: "Cape Town, Johannesburg and Lagos are our three gateway cities in sub-Saharan Africa where we aim to have scaled growth of up to ten hotels within the same city.
"Dakar, Abidjan, Douala, Luanda, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam and Addis Ababa are proactive cities, where we aim to have between three and five hotels due to size of economy, market, long-term fundamentals and supply and demand opportunities. We expect our future growth to arise from existing hotel take-overs and new build hotels."
"With economic headwinds in some African markets, we have identified opportunities to exploit our vast knowledge and experience in converting unbranded, underperforming hotels or underperforming office or apartment buildings and reposition them to the right brand and market segment within the Radisson Hotel Group brand portfolio. In addition, we are not ignoring the smaller cities and larger towns across Africa where we’ve identified potential to penetrate the market with either our midscale Park Inn by Radisson brand or upscale Radisson."
Radisson Hotel Group plans to open five more hotels across Africa in 2019, pushing the African portfolio to 50 hotels in operation before year-end. These openings include the first Radisson Blu hotel in Casablanca, which is the Group’s second hotel in Morocco, scheduled to open within the next six months, as well as their first hotel, and the countries first internationally branded hotel in Niger, with the opening of Radisson Blu Hotel Niamey in Q2 this year.
"Our strategy will certainly reinforce our presence in key markets across Africa as we continue to focus on delivering on our expanding pipeline," concluded Mclachlan.
