Hilton Has Luxury ‘Coming Out of Its Ears’ in Saudi Arabia. Now It Wants the Middle Market.

Hilton has spent years building luxury hotels in Saudi Arabia. Now its EMEA president says the upper end of the market is largely established, and the next wave of demand will come from mid-market brands and franchises. “We’ve got Conrads, Waldorfs, Hiltons, Curios, and DoubleTrees coming out of our ears over there,” Simon Vincent, Hilton’s president for Europe, Middle East, and Africa, told Skift. “But it’s the mid-market we want to build out, and that’s how, very often, markets evolve.” Vincent compared the strategy to Hilton’s development in Turkey: from the Hilton Istanbul Bosphorus, which opened in 1955, to more than 100 hotels in the country today. The build-out came mainly through mid-market brands such as Hilton Garden Inns in provincial towns and Hampton hotels in secondary cities — not more Conrads. “They are the best hotels in most of those towns and cities,” he said. “It might be a mid-market hotel, but it’s an i