When it comes to hotel development across Africa in 2024, Accor, Hilton, IHG, Marriott International and Radisson Hotel Group dominate the pipeline, according to this year’s African Hotel Chain Development Pipeline report.
Significant trends to emerge in the past year include strong growth, over 9 per cent, in both North and sub-Saharan Africa, an increase in very large hotels (the average size of the largest 10 hotels is 770 rooms, up from 723 rooms in 2023) and a rapid growth in resorts, up by 32 per cent on 2023.
In this respect, Zanzibar has performed particularly strongly, says the report. There, the pipeline has grown from seven resorts with 983 rooms in 2023 to 14 resorts and 2,048 rooms in 2024, a sure sign of confidence in these beautiful Indian Ocean islands.
The extent to which Egypt dominates the African hotel development pipeline each year, with almost 26,250 rooms in 109 hotels, is quite remarkable. It is larger than the next four countries put together: Nigeria with 7,622 rooms in 50 hotels, Morocco with 7,169 rooms in 52 hotels and Ethiopia with 5,128 rooms spread across 31 properties.
There has been a strong increase in the number of resort projects in the pipeline, growing from 24 per cent of the total in 2023 to 30 per cent in 2024.
According to the report, around half of the rooms in hotels and resorts that opened last year were in resorts. Both Boa Vista (Cape Verde) and Sharm El Sheikh (Egypt) score highly because of the very large average size of the resorts there. The largest hotel in the entire pipeline is a Rixos resort being planned in Sharm El Sheikh, with over 1,800 rooms.
The survey, conducted by Lagos-based W Hospitality Group, in association with the Africa Hospitality Investment Forum (AHIF), is based on responses from 47 global and regional (African) hotel chains, reporting on a pipeline of hotel development activity totalling around 92,000 rooms in 524 hotels, in 41 of Africa’s 54 countries.