Intercontinental Hotels Group has added the first property under its recently launched Voco Hotels brand in the Middle East.
The 471-room Nassima Royal Hotel has been rebranded as Voco Dubai, joining the Voco Gold Coast, and the newly rebranded Voco St David’s Cardiff (formerly the Principal St David’s).
The hotel is located on Sheikh Zayed Road, and features an outdoor swimming pool, gym, spa, three restaurants, 1,000sqm of meeting space and a business centre.
The Voco brand (literally meaning ‘to invite’ or to ‘come together’ in Latin) sits alongside IHG’s Crowne Plaza offering, and according to the group was launched “to strengthen IHG’s offer in the $40 billion upscale segment, which is expected to grow by a further $20 billion by 2025”.
The group said that the brand would be suited to both new and conversion opportunities in the Middle East region, with Pascal Gauvin, Managing Director, India, Middle East & Africa, IHG referring to the Dubai market as “ever-changing and maturing”.
“In the UAE alone, the unbranded accommodation market makes up 60 per cent of the total hospitality sector,” said Gauvin.
“As such, we believe that the Emirate now requires a unique offering like Voco to cater to mindful and self-determined audiences. Voco combines the best of individual high-quality upscale hotels, with the best of IHG.
“It’s a brand that forms the heart of a newly built hotel or celebrates what already makes an existing hotel successful. Most importantly, guests can enjoy the freshness of unique hotels under a name they can trust.”
More information on Voco can be seen in our report here, published when the brand was officially launched in June.
