Remarkable Timeshare and Resort Growth in the Middle East

A September 5 article in Hotels Magazine tells us that perhaps as much as 3 trillion US dollars will be invested in Middle East tourism over the next 20 years.

$3 trillion!

So I bet you are as interested as I am in who is spending that money and what they are creating. Here’s the way the Hotels Magazine article breaks down Middle East hotel and resort development:

  • Rotana Hotels and Resorts (a regional chain) will double its portfolio to 53 hotels by 2010.
  • Marriott International currently has 22 hotels there and plans to add 16 more.
  • Hilton Hotels has 11 properties in various stages of development in the region and anticipates committing to 20 more within the next 5 years.
  • • Japanese owned JAL Hotels has already opened a new 257 room property, with plans to open two more, even larger, next year.
  • • India based Flora Group Hotels is opening their sixth hotel in Dubai later this year, with plans for 4 additional properties.
  • • By 2010, European based, Accor will triple their number of managed properties in the Middle East, with 30 hotels, accounting for more than 8,000 rooms.
  • • By 2009, Rezidor Hotel Group will add 20,000 rooms, although this number also includes the company’s growth plans for Europe and parts of Africa. Currently Rezidor has 14 Radisson properties in the Middle East.

What is perhaps the most amazing point about this extensive list is that it doesn’t include timeshare developments, the hotel and resort development underway by companies that are actually based in the Middle East, nor does it include the development of any budget brand properties.

The Timeshare Owners Blog writes frequently about the rapidly changing face of the resort and timeshare industry in the Middle East. It’s hard to be a part of the timeshare business and ignore what is going on. Growth in this corner of the world is staggering. Reports say that perhaps as many as one in four of all construction cranes are located in Dubai, and remember, Dubai is only 3885 square kilometers in size, or about three-quarters the size of Rhode Island.

What does this astounding growth and development mean for you as a timeshare owner or someone who wants to buy timeshare?

For starters, owning a timeshare with exchange privileges in a network that includes the United Arab Emirates, Israel timeshares, Egypt timeshares, Lebanon timeshares, Saudi Arabia, Syria, or other parts of the Middle East, means your timeshare should always have good exchange potential. It should also have a decent resale value, as well as good potential for use as a timeshare rental.

But what this incredible growth (much of which is funded by US industry) means for Americans and western culture as a whole, only time will tell.

In today’s blog, I am adding not one, but two YouTube videos. They are very different in content, as the first one follows, in high-energy fashion, the construction of the Burj Dubai-a skyscraper which, when complete, will be the tallest building in the world. As you watch the video, look for the slides near the end that give you an idea of just how tall a roughly 160-story building really is.

After you watch the Burj construction video, take a few more minutes and watch the very serene video about the development of some of Dubai’s outer islands. While this second YouTube was put together as a promotional piece for a company providing water taxi services, the information about some of the residential islands themselves is very close to mind-boggling.