Marriott International Inc. (MAR), Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. (HOT) and Hilton Worldwide Inc. are turning to Africa, where a growing middle class and rising travel are fueling the fastest pace of hotel development in the world.
Marriott has increased the

number

of hotel rooms it plans on the continent by 55 percent from last year. For Starwood, revenue per available room in Africa and the Middle East is the highest of any region worldwide. The high-end Transcorp Hilton Abuja, in Nigeria’s capital, commands some of the steepest management fees in the world for its operator, according to Lagos, Nigeria-based hotel-consulting firm W Hospitality Group.
Hotel investors and operators, finding growth slowing in mature European and U.S. markets, are expanding in Africa as the continent is buoyed by increasing trade with countries including China and rising demand for services such as lodging. More than half of Africa’s countries probably will post gross domestic product growth of 5 percent annually through 2016, Economist Intelligence Unit Ltd. said.
“Africa’s middle class is almost as large as the entire populations of Russia and Brazil combined,” Hassan Ahdab, Starwood’s regional vice president for the African and Indian Ocean region, said in an e-mail. “The boom in sub-Saharan Africa is attracting business talent from the rich world.”
The sub-Saharan region includes Kenya and Tanzania in the east, Nigeria in the west, Angola in the southwest, and South Africa and Botswana in the south.