Aiana Hotels in ME and India

Backed by a professional team of experts Aiana Hotel and Resorts are on a rapid expansion plan in the Middle East and India. Amruda Nair, Joint Managing Director and CEO, shares with TravTalk their latest plans for the region.

TT Bureau

Do give us an overview of the properties.
Aiana Hotels & Resorts currently have eight properties under its portfolio. The first being ‘Aiana Suites and Residences, Doha’; a 180-key serviced apartment, located in the prestigious West Bay district in Doha scheduled to open by the second quarter of 2017. The second property is Aiana Hotels’ first property in India — ‘Aiana Munnar – A Moonriver Resort’ in Verdant Kerala scheduled to open in 2017. In addition, our strategic expansion plans include a recent agreement with India’s Ferns Estates & Developers to manage and operate four new resorts in the Southern Indian state of Karnataka, of which the first resort is scheduled to open in 2019.
Another milestone for Aiana is the Aiana Makkah, scheduled to open in Q1 2017. A 611 room hotel in the Holy City of Makkah, designed specifically to provide comfort by anticipating the needs of families and groups that visit Makkah for pilgrimage. Great care has been taken to provide travellers with adequate amenities, efficient and friendly service as well as a varied cuisine featuring signature dishes from the Middle East, Indian Sub-continent, the Far East and North Africa.
We have also recently signed a deal to open Aiana Agra — a 150 room hotel in one of the most visited leisure destinations in India. Spread across a six acre site in the historical city of Agra is likely to open in 2019.
What are the feeder markets to the property/properties? Will you be tapping into any new markets?
In India our key source markets are the UK, USA, Germany and France; KSA remains the biggest source market for Qatar. Indian tourists were the second highest in 2015 followed by the UK, Bahrain, UAE, Oman and Kuwaiti tourists among the top 10 source markets. For Makkah, GCC, Indonesia, Malaysia, Turkey, India, Bangladesh are strong markets.
Any new properties planned for 2017 especially in the UAE?
We are currently working towards the opening of two of our hotel properties, Aiana Makkah set to be open by Q1 2017 and Aiana Doha Residences to be opened by Q2 2017. We are also in the final stages of launching hotels in Kerala under the Aiana brand. We have also entered Phase 2 of our plan, where we are now looking at opportunities in other GCC markets such as Dubai and Oman to convert existing hotels to the Aiana brand.