Hot African markets paint a promising future for the African hotel business, as Philippe Doizelet discusses in this TV show.

African market hot-spots

I think the sector would have developed in number and also in quality. I think that we will have a much more professional sector, a much more structured hotel investment scheme. And I think that the future of hotel business in Africa is very promising overall. Well let me focus for once on French speaking market. I will certainly quote Dakar, the capital of Senegal as a very, very promising market, very interesting environment with the city itself, a new airport coming and a nearby coastline with a promising resort a potential. So Dakar and surrounding areas are promising. I think that we have Abidjan, Ivory Coast, back on the scene. We had a kind of turmoil in this city for a while, now it’s back again with the refurbishment of the former Ivoire Hotel, now Pullman, a brand new Onomo Hotel has opened, there’s an Azalai in the pipe closer to Abidjan. And third I would quote Douala, in Douala several project were on, a project from Marriott, from Novotel, but they did not happen really. I heard that some IAG project were in the pipe, but still, I think there’s a need for renewal of projects in those areas. And on top of those French speaking countries I know best, I can quote certainly Dar-es-Salem, Addis Ababa and Accra as very promising markets as well.   If you enjoyed this video about African markets why not explore more TV shows on The Hospitality TV Channel 

Institutional investors are taking over from the government funded projects of the previous generation in Africa, as discussed by Philippe Doizelet.

Institutional investors of the new generation

You have a change in generation. The old model was made of a government funded project, ruled or managed by international hotel companies. Now it’s very different, it starts from the fields actually. You have local investment funds or institutional investors like insurance companies or even local holding or family offices, believing in the rise of economy, understanding that the hotel business is an induced market and from there they invest in hotel projects. The main opportunity is that now regardless the difficulty of funding their project, they manage to get agreement with hotel major companies and support of a financial organisation who have a closer look on the sector. You have money coming from mainly, from Africa, from the continent because economy conditions now enable local investors to have cash available for development. And they are in a position from there to leverage that from international banks or specialised banks, namely IFC or Afreximbank or local banks from key African countries, including Morocco or South Africa.   The Hospitality TV Channel will continue to follow issues around institutional investors and will have many more videos focused on regional markets.