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Radisson Hotel Group appoints Ramsey Rankoussi, others to drive Africa’s expansion

As tourism business looks to restart following the impact of COVID – 19 pandemic, Radisson Hotel Group has unveiled strategic appointments to drive it renewed vision for expansion of its Africa’ operations. Ramsay Rankoussi is named the new head of development for Africa while Danile Trappler is the new senior director for development for sub – Sahara. Rankoussi, who is based in Dubai has been with the company for more than six years and now leads Group’s growth in Africa. The appointment reinforces Group’s confidence that Africa continues to be a region of growth.

Trappler brings a unique set of skills to the investment community, as he is one of the few specialists in hotel transactions and capital markets, dedicated to Africa. His strong understanding of the region’s unlocks access to a network of financial institutions which represents the biggest challenge across the continent, in terms of deal structuring and hotel openings. Radisson Hotel Group’s development and growth strategy in Africa follows a twofold approach. The first part concentrates on focus countries while the second centres on creating key hubs.

By creating a mass city scale development strategy with a focus on key countries and surrounding markets including: Morocco, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa, the group’s ‘hub approach’ ensures synergy among neighbouring countries and creates further value for its hotels, in terms of both development and operations. Each member of Radisson Hotel Group’s development team is a leader in this approach because of their geographical proximity as well as their local cultural knowledge and linguistic understanding of each focus market.

The Chief Executive Officer of the group, Elie Younes, says of the new move: “Africa has always been at the forefront of our growth journey and we have recently adopted a new tailored strategy across the continent, reflecting the needs of the market and also underlining our ambitions to accelerate our presence in all key cities. ‘‘I am very pleased with Ramsay’s new role overseeing our development in Africa. Over the last six years, Ramsay has proven to be a key asset to our development team, and with the appointment of Daniel, we become increasingly relevant to our owners and investment partners. We look forward to developing our presence even further and contributing to the local community through job creation and additional positive knock-on effects of investment.”

The targeted territories where the group is focused on growing its presence include the Maghreb; West Africa with Senegal and Ivory Coast; Central Africa with Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo; East Africa with Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania; and specific countries within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) such as Angola, Mauritius, Mozambique and Zambia. According to Rankoussi:“This is a tremendous opportunity to further accelerate our growth in Africa and I am pleased to be surrounded by the best team.

We have ensured a geographical alignment in our resources and optimised our response time with deal experts in every market we cover. ‘‘The addition of Daniel to the team unlocks a new horizon where Radisson Hotel Group will be able to further assist our partners in debt and equity raising, but we will also leverage our complete skill set in addressing cross-regional synergies from financial to construction solutions to ensure we always remain relevant to our owners. ‘‘What really set us apart is our pragmatic design approach and our transparency throughout the process, in combination with our continuous guidance throughout each phase, including construction and financing. We are always quick to provide answers and support.”

Radisson Hotel Group is one of the world’s largest hotel groups with seven distinctive hotel brands, and more than 1,400 hotels in operation and under development in 120 countries. Its signature service philosophy is Every Moment Matters. It brand portfolio includes Radisson Collection, Radisson Blu, Radisson, Radisson RED, Park Plaza, Park Inn by Radisson and Country Inn and Suites by Radisson, brought together under one commercial umbrella brand Radisson Hotels.

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