India’s Taj Group has delayed the opening of its flagship hotel in Dubai until the first quarter of next year from this year’s fourth quarter.
The launch of the 296-room Taj Dubai, which will be located in Burj Khalifa downtown, is part of Taj’s plans to expand its footprint in the Middle East.
Taj Group, which owns the Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai, is a unit of the Tata Group conglomerate. Taj Group has 108 hotels in India with an additional 17 international hotels in the Maldives, Malaysia, Australia, the UK, the US, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Africa and the Middle East.
Taj Group is one of several hotel chains planning to set up new establishments in the emirate.
Hotel demand in Dubai is increasing as the emirate’s plans to double tourist arrivals to 20 million visitors by 2020 from 10 million in 2010. The government is targeting a near-doubling of hotel rooms to between 140,000 and 160,000 by 2020 from more than 88,000 rooms now.
Dubai received a record 5.8 million tourists in the first half of 2014, a record number for a half-year, according to the Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM). Revenues for hotels and hotel apartments grew 10.9 per cent in the first half to Dh12.74 billion from a year earlier period, said the DTCM.
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