Accor sees UAE and Saudi Arabia leading hospitality sector recovery in the Middle East – The National

  • Date: 24-May-2020
  • Source: The National
  • Sector:Transport
  • Country:UAE
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Accor sees UAE and Saudi Arabia leading hospitality sector recovery in the Middle East – The National

French hospitality group Accor, one of the biggest hotels operator in the Middle East and Africa, expects the hospitality sector in Saudi Arabia and the UAE to rebound from a coronavirus-inflicted slowdown within 18 to 24 months once aviation operations in the region begin.. Pent up demand for business and tourism in the Middle East will drive the recovery in the two Gulf states, Mark Willis, chief executive of Accor MEA told The National in an interview.. Other GCC markets, may take longer to come back to pre-coronavirus pandemic levels, Mr Willis said as it took these markets 36 months to fully recover after the financial crisis.. Across the region, "all destinations would not bounce back as quickly as the key destinations for the sure," Mr Willis said.. The pandemic has hit airlines, tourism and the hospitality sector particularly hard worldwide, forcing carriers to go from growth to survival mode within a matter of months.. "From a broad prospective, 18 to 24 months to get back to where we were in 2019, I would say, is a realistic target, not least because places like Dubai have been so wonderfully resilient over the years," Mark Willis, chief executive of Accor MEA,