Hilton Garden Inns Head to the Middle East

DUBAI-Hilton Hotels Corp. has signed an agreement to open 13 Hilton Garden Inns across Saudi Arabia. The properties, totaling 2,500 rooms in all, will start opening next year, with a unit in Riyadh being the first.

Other cities Hilton is considering for the mid-priced chain include Al Khobar, Dammam, Jubail, King Abdullah Economic City, Taif, Abha, Tabuk, Hail/Buraydah and Yanbu. The Garden Inn rooms will be at least 301 square feet, and each facility will contain a restaurant, lounge area and meeting rooms.

Hilton is working with the Saudi Arabia-based Abdulmohsen Al-Hokair Group for Tourism and Development on the new developments. That organization has built hotels under the Holiday Inn and Tulip Inn banners, as well as other brands.

These will be Hilton’s first Garden Inns in the Middle East and Africa region. The chain is currently in the US, Latin America, Canada and Europe and has about 421 units.

Hilton currently has four hotels in Saudi Arabia, three Hiltons in the cities of Jeddah, Makkah and Madinah, and a Waldorf=Astoria Collection property in Jeddah. In all, Hilton operates 33 facilities in the Middle East and has a pipeline of 16 under development in the Middle East and Africa.