Emaar’s Alabbar and Armani reboot hotel partnership

• Deal with Alabbar’s investment firm
• Only two hotels launched in 22 years
• Hotel planned for Saudi’s Diriyah Gate

Dubai billionaire and Emaar Properties founder Mohamed Alabbar has revived his hotel partnership with fashion house Giorgio Armani, but this time outside the Emaar group. 

Instead, the mandate rests with his private investment office, Symphony Global, which now holds the rights to develop future Armani hotels and resorts, continuing a 22-year partnership that up until now has resulted in just two hotels. 

In a joint statement, Alabbar and Giorgio Armani Group said the new collaboration would focus on select international destinations but provided no specifics or timelines. The deal will last 20 years, with options to extend another decade. 

The release stated that Alabaar’s investment firm would develop the hotels but not operate them. This means Alabbar could own the assets, but then hire another company to run the property. In Dubai and Milan, Emaar is owner and operator of the joint venture.

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Armani Hotels and Resorts will run out of offices in Dubai and Milan. 

Alabbar and Armani’s rebooted plans hint at two separate brands under the partnership: a luxury flag which the existing Dubai and Milan hotels fall under and a lifestyle brand aimed at a younger, trendier demographic. 

“This would better serve the new generations of tourists, especially in ‘new’ continents, and with the ambition of responding to growing global demand for high-end hospitality,” the pair said in their joint statement. 

But the two companies have tried and failed to go global before. 

Under their first partnership, two out of an initially planned 14 hotels materialised over two decades. Emaar partnered with Armani in 2004 for the hotel brand, with plans for hotels across Dubai, Milan, Tokyo, New York and Paris. The original goal was four resorts and 10 hotels by 2011. 

Only Dubai and Milan opened. A future hotel is planned in Saudi Arabia’s Diriyah Gate project, the only upcoming project on the hotel brand’s development page. 

In 2015, five years after the Armani hotel in Dubai opened, Emaar said plans for a third property had been put on hold. 

AGBI has contacted both parties for comment. 

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Other fashion-anchored hotel chains have grown faster: since 2001 Bulgari and Marriott’s Bulgari Hotels and Resorts has spawned nine properties with another five in the pipeline. 

It’s unclear why the licensing deal was renewed under Alabbar directly rather than Emaar as before. One possibility is it gives Alabbar an easier path to develop outside his native Dubai, such as at Eagle Hills projects, the real estate developer of which he is also founder. 

Eagle Hills is effectively Alabbar’s international development business. It has ongoing projects in Albania, Bahrain, Croatia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Georgia, Italy, Jordan, Latvia, Montenegro, Morocco, Oman, Serbia and the UAE, according to its website.