Saudi Gazette JEDDAH – Rotana Hotels Company and SHUAA Capital Saudi Arabia celebrated the opening of ‘Centro Shaheen Jeddah', one of the joint projects between the two corporations. Centro Shaheen Jeddah is the third hotel in the Kingdom for ‘Centro by Rotana' brand. With the company plans of having five hotels in Saudi Arabia, including Centro Waha Riyadh, Centro Olaya Riyadh, Centro Corniche Al-Khobar, Centro Salama Jeddah, and Centro Shaheen Jeddah, a large number of job opportunities for the local workforce will be created. Rotana hotel management company is also planning to open more hotels in the future in Dammam as well as a hotel in Madinah. With this opening of Rotana Shaheen Jeddah, the total number of hotels managed by Rotana has risen to more than 100 with 60 fully operational and currently there are around 13 thousands employees. Rotana is planning to have around 29 thousands team members once work on all properties is completed by 2020. During the conference held in the new property on Oct.12. to announce the hotel launch, Chairman of Rotana Hotel Management Corporation Nasser Al Nowais said hospitality in Saudi Arabia has a great potential for growth and create more careers for the Saudi youth. Rotana President and CEO Omer Kaddouri said "because we know that Rotana has a responsibility to try and to ensure that young Saudis of today are joining the hospitality business, we want to hire Saudis because we want them to be the future of the hospitality industry. We have 1,000 hotel rooms in Saudi Arabia and by the next year, there will be around 2,000 hotel rooms. So many Saudis are going to be working in our hotels." He added that Rotana's responsibility is to make sure that the Saudi's employees start to work, learn, feel that hotel business is good for them, and they can build careers. "One day our hotels would be managed by Saudis. We have to teach them to be stronger and to grow. Lots of training plans for all the company's employees, including how to talk to customers, how to deal with customers, sales and marketing, and more. Every years the employees have to do many hours of trainings," Kaddouri noted. When Kaddouri was asked about the 2030 Vision and the hospitality sector, he answered "we are very happy with new focus of the economic drive from the senior the leadership of the country that they see the hospitality as important. They have said that they want more hotels, more tourism, and they want the Saudis more involved in the industry. We feel that this is the right time for us. We are growing and everyone working with us would be part of the future of Saudi Arabia." SHUAA capital is the fund manager and developer of this joint project. During the conference, the CEO of SHUAA Capital Saudi Arabia Omar Al Jaroudi said "we are witnessing today a significant milestone that is the launch of Centro Shaheen Jeddah, one of the joint projects courtesy of strategic collaboration between SHUAA Capital Saudi Arabia and Rotana."
