TRAVEL AND TOUR WORLD | July 10, 2025
In an exclusive conversation with Travel and Tour World (TTW), Bani Haddad, Founder and Managing Director of Aleph Hospitality, revealed how the company’s recent partnership with African Hotel Development (AHD) marks a defining moment in its ambitious journey to become Africa’s leading independent hotel management powerhouse.
The deal will see Aleph Hospitality assume operations of 26 ONOMO-branded hotels across Africa starting September 2025, effectively doubling its portfolio and bringing it closer to its goal of managing 50 hotels by the end of 2025. Looking ahead, the company is targeting 100 properties under management by 2029, driven by robust market opportunities in both Africa and the Middle East.
Aleph’s expansion reflects a significant trend in global hospitality: the operational separation of brand ownership from hotel management. AHD’s strategic decision to split asset ownership, brand development, and hotel operations aligns with an emerging model that prioritizes efficiency, specialization, and sustainable value creation. Aleph’s role as a dedicated management partner allows both entities to leverage their unique strengths without conflicts of interest.
A key focus of Aleph’s growth strategy lies in establishing regional offices in Nairobi, Cape Town, Abidjan, and Casablanca. These offices will empower local teams to maintain operational excellence and agility across diverse markets, enhancing Aleph’s on-the-ground support in countries where cultural and regulatory differences require localized expertise.
Haddad emphasized the crucial role of local knowledge, cluster operations, and close stakeholder proximity in navigating Africa’s complex hotel landscape, which now spans 23 countries and 39 cities under Aleph’s management.
While Aleph will manage the ONOMO hotel operations, the ONOMO brand itself remains independently run. However, AHD plans significant brand enhancements for ONOMO’s upscale tiers, signaling continued investment in Africa’s growing lifestyle hospitality market.
Beyond business growth, Aleph is committed to contributing to community and economic development. Initiatives like Aleph CARES and partnerships with organizations like Evolvin’ Women demonstrate Aleph’s focus on sustainability and empowering local talent across its markets.
With its strategic partnership, new regional infrastructure, and vision for sustainable growth, Aleph Hospitality is redefining independent hotel management in Africa, positioning itself as a pivotal player in the continent’s booming hospitality landscape.
What makes this partnership with African Hotel Development a defining moment for Aleph Hospitality, and how do you envision it shaping your growth strategy across Africa?
This transaction represents an exciting new chapter in our growth journey and further cements our position as the largest independent hotel management company across the Middle East and Africa. 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. With the combined pipeline, we are setting ourselves another target of 100 hotels within the next four years.
In addition to operating the 26 Onomo hotels from 1 September onwards, we will have the opportunity to open four regional offices, further scale our operations and enhance our efficiency across markets, and roll out additional cluster operations in key markets, including Kenya and Morocco where we’re already active. This will allow us to provide even better and more agile on the ground support to our stakeholders.
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.
With the addition of 26 ONOMO-branded hotels to your portfolio, how will Aleph Hospitality ensure consistency in operational excellence across such a diverse range of countries?
We are immensely proud of our team that has helped shape and build Aleph over the past decade to become the largest independent hotel management company in the Middle East and Africa, and this deal is a great testament to everyone’s hard work, commitment and passion over the past decade.
In addition to our headquarters in Dubai, UAE and regional office in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, we will have four fully-fledged regional offices in Africa, led by senior hospitality professionals and supported by a very strong team.
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.
Aleph plans to open four new regional offices following this transaction. Can you share more about the locations, their strategic importance, and how they will support cluster operations?
Yes absolutely, the new regional offices will play a very 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.
What specific strategies will Aleph Hospitality implement to elevate the ONOMO Allure and ONOMO Collection offerings within the upscale hospitality segment?
The brand is not part of the deal. Onomo and Aleph remain independently run. We know, however, that African Hotel Development’s ambition for the Onomo brands is very high and that 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.
What are the key challenges of managing hotel operations across over 10 African countries, and how does Aleph’s approach uniquely address them?
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 the additional four regional Aleph offices.
This transaction brings Aleph closer to your target of operating 50 hotels by the end of 2025. What milestones are next on your roadmap to reach and exceed that goal?
As mentioned earlier, 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.
How does this operational shift, separating brand ownership from hotel management, reflect larger trends in the global hospitality industry?
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 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.
Looking ahead, how do you see Aleph Hospitality contributing not just to hospitality growth but also to community and economic development across the African markets you serve?
Community and economic development in the markets we operate are integral to our overall growth strategy. We will continue to expand and implement our Aleph CARES programme across our portfolio, which is a critical aspect of our day-to-day operations. Aleph CARES stands for Community, Aleph, Responsible, Environment and Sustainability.
Under the Aleph CARES programme, each hotel in our portfolio has appointed an Aleph Cares Pioneer who is passionate about and responsible for raising awareness of sustainability and finding solutions in their respective hotel, working closely with the local team to develop and implement best practices. We’ve also set measurable sustainability KPIs for all our General Managers as part of the programme.
In addition we look to further expand our relationships and partnerships with likeminded organisations and associations such as Evolvin’ Women, an impact organisation focused on advancing the professional skills of women from underserved communities in Africa, enabling them to build careers and livelihoods to support themselves and their families.
Aleph Hospitality and Evolvin’ Women entered a partnership to provide unemployed women in Africa with access to job placement opportunities within Aleph Hospitality’s hotel portfolio across Africa and the Middle East.
We also look to expand our collaboration with educational institutions across the region and provide work opportunities in our hotels for the next generation of hoteliers in Africa and the Middle East.
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