How to join in the hotel-building boom in Doha, Qatar

Doha has 17,964 hotel rooms available today, primarily in the 4 and 5-star hotels and deluxe apartment-hotel categories. The Doha Port also has fully-equipped berths for cruise ships to accommodate a minimum of 6,000 additional visitors at the highest international standards.

According to the Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA) a total of 48 new 5-star hotels with 13,151 rooms, 41 new 4-star hotels with 8,829 rooms, and nine 3-star hotels with 2001 rooms are planned and will be ready by 2016. A further 10,452 apartment-style hotel rooms are in the planning stage. This will no doubt rise as we come closer to the 2022 World Cup by when the QTA expects there to be in excess of 70,000 rooms. As such hotel investors and operators can see massive growth potential in Qatar in the field in the immediate future. But how does a hotel business become established given the particular laws of Qatar?