American international hotel chain, Radisson has added six new hotels to its African portfolio. The company disclosed this last Tuesday.

The global brand aims at realizing its business expansion goals across the continent, regardless of the setbacks from the pandemic.   

The expansion includes new properties in sub-Saharan Africa – Mali, Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, and two in South Africa. Currently, Radisson manages about 100 hotels in 32 African markets.

“We aim to further accelerate our presence across the continent through conversions, especially as liquidity remains a critical challenge,” said Ramsay Rankoussi, Radisson’s vice president for development in Africa and Turkey.

Although Ramsay did not disclose the amount invested, he emphasized that the company revisited its signatory architecture style to enable them to quickly integrate existing hotels to their network.

The first hotel in the new set will launch in Bamako, the capital and largest city in Mali, within the next six months.

While the last, which is a 258-room facility in Nigeria’s capital Abuja, is expected to open in 2024. 

Due to lockdown measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, the economy of the sub-Saharan region is expected to contract from 2.4% in 2019 to between -2.1 and -5.1% in 2020.

The economic shrink will possibly spark the region’s first recession in 25 years.

Nevertheless, considering the large expanse of land and the growing population in sub-Saharan Africa, the region holds a great market potential for real estate investment.

Over the past few years, SSA’s growing economy (3.4 percent in 2019) has attracted investors from around the world, amongst other activities that have been instrumental in the growth of the hospitality sector.

According to details on the official website of Radisson, the hospitality company runs 380 hotels with more than 83,300 rooms across 79 countries in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA).