Friday 27 / December / 2024
Salalah: Muriya, a diversified building developer, successfully completed the first phase of construction for a hotel in its flagship destination in the Governorate of Dhofar, making it the largest contributor to the development of high-end hotels in Oman in the last five years.
Marking the completion of this milestone, Muriya organised a celebration ceremony, held in the presence of Sayyid Muhammad bin Sultan Al Busaidi, minister of State and Governor of Dhofar, which also drew government dignitaries, as well as representatives and clients. The celebration included the grand opening of the company’s third hotel, the four-star 218-room Fanar Hotel and Residences.
Samih Sawiris, chairman of Muriya and of Orascom Development Holding AG said, “I would like to thank the government of Oman, all its institutions and especially the Ministry of Tourism led by Ahmed Nasser Al Mahrizi, Minister of Tourism for the continuous support and robust investment developing the Sultanate’s infrastructure, which has been key to the success of Orascom Development Holding and Omran’s strategic partnership. We have invested over $500 million targeting the development of the largest Integrated Tourism Complexes (ITCs) in the country. Today we celebrate an important milestone that underlines our commitment to continue building bustling high-end tourist towns, developing new lifestyle experiences, and creating direct and indirect jobs.”
Sawiris added, “Since its inception, Muriya has been spearheading the growth of the high-end tourism, real-estate and leisure sectors. Our development strategy has been to help transform Salalah into a leading prime international destination. Today we celebrate a huge step in turning into reality what, for decades, has been a widely held belief in the potential of Salalah as a prime year-round destination.
“We are proud that the benefits of our commitment and efforts extend well beyond the limits of our projects. Our projects due to their developmental nature, are contributing to job creation well beyond the direct employment within our companies and hotels. Omani entrepreneurs, armed with smart ideas, are developing flourishing medium-size businesses in our projects. Several of those young Omanis are channelling government SME funding to create great examples of public and private partnership.”
Khalid bin Musallam Al Rawas, director general of the Directorate General of Tourism in Dhofar said: “With the government of Oman outlining tourism as a key sector in the latest Five Year Plan 2016-2020 and vision Oman 2040, the completion of the first phase of Muriya’s hotel development plan in Dhofar provides a substantial boost to its high-end hospitality infrastructure. According to the National Centre for Statistics (NCSI), a record 500,000 tourists visited the Governorate from June to August 2015, showing a 21 per cent increase from the same period in 2014. We praise the efforts made by Muriya over the last few years developing Dhofar into a year round destination. The fact that Muriya’s hotel rooms all have four and five-star rankings, makes Muriya’s tourism development plan fully aligned with the ministry’s development objectives for the region.”
Ahmed Dabbous, Muriya’s chief executive officer, said, “We are extremely proud of what our destination has developed into. Our hotels have been well received by guests, who have consistently ranked them among the top three hotels in Dhofar through online international rating agencies. We still have a lot of work to do, over the next few months we will be starting several interesting developments in our projects, including a water park that is scheduled to open by end of 2017.”
He added, “Muriya is committed to providing a platform for small local entrepreneurs. For each of our projects, we have seen inspirational SME success stories. One example in Salalah is “Around the Ocean,” which provides various water activities. Started by a young Dhofari entrepreneur, Yousef Al Shanfari’s leadership has been an inspiration to all of us turning a start up with one boat on service into a medium-sized business serving our hotels’ guests and creating employment opportunities for local Omani talent. As we continue to grow, we will be working on adding more local SME partnerships and helping the growth of existing ones.”
Adding to its diverse offerings, new food and beverages outlets were recently introduced, including a speciality coffee house chain Gloria Jean’s Coffees and the picturesque Island Restaurant. The mixed-use development features an array of freehold villas and apartments, as well as leisure, retail and service facilities.
