Jumeirah has deals to manage 50 hotels

Jumeirah Group, the company that operates Dubai’s sail-shaped Burj Al Arab, has agreements to manage 50 hotels, short of its target for 60 agreements by 2012, its executive chairman said. The closely held company, which operates luxury hotels and resorts owned by Dubai’s government, will manage a total of 35-to-40 hotels in the next five years and plans to open one hotel in each of Azerbaijan, Kuwait and Dubai this year, Gerald Lawless told reporters at a conference in Dubai. The company currently operates 20 hotels and has agreements for another 30. “I’d say we are a little bit short of that, but not that short,” Lawless said of the target for 60 hotels. The average occupancy rate for Jumeirah’s beach hotels was 84.4 percent in the first quarter of the year, while the average occupancy rate for the company’s city properties was 85.5 percent, Lawless said. Jumeirah is in the “final stages” of agreeing three management contracts in Saudi Arabia, he said.