Following on from the announcement covered on BTN earlier this week regarding Aleph Hospitality’s appointment to manage 26 ONOMO-branded hotels across 14 African countries, we caught up with Bani Haddad, Founder and Managing Director, Aleph Hospitality to find out what this means to the company and how they intend to manage this new major development.
BTN: Aleph Hospitality’s appointment to manage 26 ONOMO-branded hotels across 14 African countries is a significant development. What were the core objectives behind this partnership with African Hotel Development, and how does it align with your long-term vision for the continent?
BH: Yes, it’s a significant development and an important milestone in our growth journey over the past decade. This transaction represents an exciting new chapter for Aleph Hospitality and further cements our position as the largest independent hotel management company across the Middle East and Africa.
Africa Hotel Development (AHD) has taken a strategic decision to separate their business in three: Asset Management (Owning company), Brand Development, and Operations. While doing this, they have decided to entrust Aleph Hospitality with the management of their hotels.
This deal allows both entities to focus on their respective areas of strength. It allows us at Aleph Hospitality to provide the AHD hotels with world-class hotel management expertise while freeing up AHD to focus on the rapid development and growth of the Onomo brand and its asset portfolio.
Like many other institutional investors globally, AHD understood the benefits of handing over the management to a dedicated and professional operator. This model allows a continuous value creation for AHD as asset owners: There is now a separation of duties allowing parties to challenge each other without any complacency or conflict of interest.
With this deal we double the size of our portfolio to reach our objective of 50 hotels by the end of 2025 and grow our existing presence in 10+ countries in Africa to over 20. Africa is one of the most dynamic and promising hospitality markets in the world today and has been at the core of our growth strategy at Aleph. We are very excited to expand our operations across the continent and bring our successful independent management model to even more markets across the MEA region.
BTN: Managing such a large and geographically diverse portfolio presents operational challenges. What governance, infrastructure, and talent strategies are you implementing to ensure consistency and scalability across the ONOMO network?
BH: We are very excited to add Onomo as a new brand to our managed portfolio, and we’re especially proud and delighted as it’s an African-born leading lifestyle hospitality brand.
Through this deal, we are now present in 23 countries and 39 cities across the region. Running an international operation at this scale, requires a thorough understanding of local cultures, languages and regulations, as well as strong established local and regional networks of suppliers, authorities, industry associations, trade partners and access to the workforce.
This is where our already established regional presence, through cluster operations such as the existing ones in Nairobi and Casablanca are key, built over the past decade of managing hotels across the Middle East and Africa. This current infrastructure and the teams on the ground will now be further strengthened by four additional regional Aleph offices, which will play a strategic role in our continued growth journey. We will be opening a regional office in Nairobi for East Africa, in Cape Town for South Africa, Abidjan for West Africa, and in Casablanca for North Africa.
These offices will be led by experienced regional VPs with an entrepreneurial mindset and a strong level of seniority. They will be responsible for their region from both a growth and operational perspective. Hotel General Managers and Cluster roles will report to them while being supported by functional leaders in the Aleph corporate headquarters in Dubai.
This will give us close proximity to our stakeholders across Africa, which not many other hotels groups offer. In fact, I don’t know of any other hotel groups who have such a vast “corporate” local presence on the continent.
Our objective is to give a lot of autonomy to these regions to enable them to be very close to the day-to-day operations and to be able to anticipate the ever-evolving market and stakeholders needs. In our business model at Aleph, we strongly believe that local expertise and knowledge is the key to success.
BTN: ONOMO has carved a niche in Africa’s midscale urban hotel segment. How does Aleph plan to enhance the brand’s positioning, and what value do you believe your independent management model brings to these assets?
BH: As I mentioned earlier, we are very excited to add Onomo as Africa’s leading lifestyle hospitality brand to our managed portfolio. They have indeed carved a strong niche in the midscale urban hotel segment in Africa, and we look forward to providing the best-in-class services and Onomo brand experiences to the guests.
African Hotel Development’s ambition for the Onomo brands is very high and they intent to grow the brands significantly, through continued enhancement of the offerings and the creation of curated experiences across the brands, including the Allure and Collection tiers.
BTN: With Aleph now one of the largest independent operators on the continent, how are you leveraging technology and data analytics to drive performance, guest engagement, and operational efficiency across the portfolio?
BH: With such a diverse and geographically spread portfolio, we had anticipated the need to roll out and implement the adequate technology platforms to help us effectively manage our hotels.
We believe technology is not just a support function—it’s a strategic enabler that empowers our decentralised model.
We are investing and partnering with integrated tech platforms that centralise data from all properties, giving us real-time visibility into performance metrics, guest feedback, and operational KPIs. This enables our teams to make faster, data-driven decisions that improve revenue, reduce costs, and elevate guest satisfaction. Some of these platforms, such the guest feedback are already in place while the Business Intelligence interface is being rolled out.
We are also improving our revenue management capabilities to optimise pricing, distribution, and inventory, ensuring we capture demand and maximise profitability in a diverse range of markets
Finally, we are in the process of evaluating systems to help us automate routine tasks and digitise back-of-house processes, allowing our teams to spend more time where it matters most: with the guest.
BTN: Turning to the MENA region, what markets are currently in focus for Aleph Hospitality, and how are you tailoring your development approach to suit the different economic and tourism dynamics of the region?
BH: With this transaction we will achieve our objective of 50 hotels by the end of 2025, representing 7000+ rooms, a milestone we are immensely proud of. Building on our success over the past decade, our growth trajectory will continue, and our target is to operate 100 hotels by 2029.
In addition to the Onomo portfolio of hotels, we also have our own existing active pipeline of 11 signed hotels in 10 countries across the Middle East and Africa in addition to four scheduled openings before the end of this year including Rwanda, Zanzibar, Saudi Arabia and Kenya.
In terms of new development, we are focusing on several markets in the Middle East including the UAE and Saudi Arabia, as well as Africa at large. We are very excited to expand our operations across the continent and bring our successful independent management model to even more markets across the MEA region.
I would like to thank Mr Haddad for his time in giving BTN and its readers a greater insight into what the deal means for all involved, clearly he and his company have a lot to do but the results will I am sure be enjoyed by the guests and customers electing to use these properties in the future.
