Regarding your hotels, what is your major differentiation, your niche in the market? Why should people choose to stay in your hotels?
I think our main advantage is our staff; they are very friendly and kind and they treat people as though they were guests in their own homes. We also have excellent locations in Tripoli; all our hotels are in the centre of the city. We focus mainly on business hospitality. Our hotels are very central, near to the Tripoli Fair and we also try to provide excellent services such as high speed internet that businessmen and businesswomen are looking for.
In terms of your business growth, what is your strategy? How would you like to grow in terms of the number of properties, and would you be moving into the 3 star or 5 star sector?
In terms of hotels, we are trying to focus more and more on the 4 star hotels. We are planning to build two 5 star hotels, one in Tripoli and one in Misrata; however our main area is the 4 star hotels. We are trying to reach 1,500 rooms by 2016.
How much investment will this require?
Well I believe we are talking about somewhere between 50 to 65 million Libyan dinars.
We are also going to be moving into new sectors. We are going to be doing property management as well. We have many buildings in Tripoli that we rent to other companies. This sector is going to develop a lot over the next 3 or 4 years.
In terms of the group, what is your year on year growth? What do you predict for the future growth of the company?
Last year our growth was around 17% and this year we expect it to be about 20%, especially in construction and property management. We are building a hospital, which is our own investment and it will be finished in 2015. This is the first time that we have worked in this sector and we hope this will be one of the principal hospitals in Libya for cardiology.
In terms of hotels, we plan to have a new hotel every year.
(Source: Marcopolis)