Cape Verde with highest Balearic investment in Africa
Cape Verde has become the African country with the greatest investment on the Balearic Islands, in which Riu, Meliá, Iberostar and Barceló are going to be the main protagonists, together with all the service companies that collaborate with the Mallorcan hotel chains in their ongoing process of internationalization.
The African country will double its foreign hotel offer on the islands of Boa Vista and Sal in less than three years, where the projects for the creation of new four and five star hotels will be concentrated. Cape Verde currently has 12 hotels under the management or ownership of Majorcan chains and in the medium term it will increase to more than 21 establishments due to the projects that Meliá and Barceló are going to carry out.
From the chain chaired by Gabriel Escarrer Juliá, they indicate: “We now have five hotels under management with a total of 2,100 rooms and it is planned to increase our offer by five more starting in 2023, which will increase our capacity by 1,700 more rooms”. From Meliá they point out that in Cape Verde “we have a very solid and complete business in this destination, because under the same brand we have a very diversified offer and focused on capturing all market segments, both in terms of active tourism, family and the one who seeks only to rest». The company points out that the destination has fully recovered during this summer and in winter “it is consolidating more strongly and reaching figures close to 2019″.
The general manager of the Atlantic area of the Barceló group, Ángel Esquinas, announces a real landing in Cape Verde: «Next year we will begin construction of a five-star hotel with 200 rooms on the island of Sal on land that They are our property.”
He adds that an establishment on the island of Praia and two more in Boa Vista will be added to this project. «These are small hotels of the highest quality, which as a whole will not exceed 600 rooms. For the Barceló group, this country has great potential for tourism growth and we want to have an active presence due to the great growing demand in the European markets”.
The Iberostar group only has one hotel, specifically in Boa Vista, and the group’s strategic expansion plan, chaired by Miguel Fluxá, is to increase this offer due to the demand of British and German tourism. Riu, for its part, has a complete offer in this destination and has a total of six hotels spread between Sal and Boa Vista. It is the chain that generates the most employment in Cape Verde, with nearly 4,000 workers. This spectacular figure is only surpassed by the Government of the country located on the northwest coast of Africa. This increase in the Majorcan hotel presence is also going to have a direct impact on all the service companies that accompany them in their internationalization.
The Asinem employers’ association, which includes installation companies, indicates that the growth of activity in Cape Verde is going to be exponential and already exceeds that in Morocco, Zanzibar, Tanzania and Egypt. «Cape Verde has become the main country in terms of hotel investment and attraction of service companies in the Balearic Islands, since it is a very different country from the rest of the African continent due to its tranquility, security and leisure vacation offer for all segments”, points out Asinem.
