Dubai: Jumeirah Group is the latest home-grown hotel company to make its foray into the four-star hotel market.
On Tuesday, luxury hotel group Jumeirah, part of Dubai Holding, revived its four-star hotel brand, Venu, after it was first introduced in 2010, stirring competition in the market.
Last year, Dubai-based Emaar Hospitality Group, the hospitality and leisure subsidiary of Emaar Properties, launched Vida Hotels and Resorts, which analysts say competes in the four-star hotel market. It is targeted at a younger generation of leisure travellers and entrepreneurs.
“There’s room for these types of hotels [in the Dubai market]. Any diversity of major brands is a good thing for Dubai,” said Philip Wooller, area director of hotel research firm STR Global.
The five-star segment accounts for around 62 per cent of hotels in Dubai, while the four-star segment represents approximately 25 per cent, Wooller said.
A Venu hotel will give travellers an option to have a high quality product at below five-star hotel rates, said Christopher Hewett, senior consultant at TRI Consulting.
Jumeirah is in talks with Meraas Holding to open its first hotel under the Venu brand in the developer’s Bluewaters Island project. Discussions will be “finalised fairly soon”, Matt Balcik, vice president operations and brand development of Venu, told Gulf News.
Negotiations
Bluewaters Island is a mixed-use development that is being built off the cost of Jumeirah Beach Residence.
Jumeirah is also interested in introducing the brand in Abu Dhabi and the Northern Emirates, as well as European markets, such as London, Barcelona, Madrid, Berlin and Rome, according to Balcik.
The group is in final stages of negotiations with other developers in the UAE and Asia Pacific to open Venu hotels, he said.
Jumeirah aims to have “25 hotels under the Venu brand [globally] by 2024”, Balcik said.
The company cancelled Venu, which Balcik calls a contemporary lifestyle brand that is “close to a four-star”, three years ago “mostly for financial reasons back then”, he said.
But with the recovery of the economy and the pick up of property development in the emirate, Jumeirah sees that it is the right time to bring back the brand.
“It is the right time to get into a segment we were not into,” Balcik said, because “within five to ten years, millennials will have the buying power and will be making travel decisions. In order to remain relevant, and promise services they’re looking for, we need to have a brand that speaks their language and reflects their lifestyle.”
Three properties, each in Dubai, Baku, Azerbaijan and Shanghai, China, were expected to operate under Venu four years ago. Instead these hotels are operated under the Jumeirah brand.
