Louvre Hotels Group, owned by China’s Jin Jiang, to open two hotels in Damascus, Syria

Deal was reported to be the first agreement with a western hotel operator since 2011, when the devastating conflict began

Reading Time:2 minutes

People attend the Damascus Fair in the Syrian capital. Louvre Hotels Group, owned by China’s Jin Jiang, has signed an agreement to open two hotels under its own name there. Photo: AFP

Published: 3:46am, 15 Sep 2019Updated: 10:40pm, 15 Sep 2019

Louvre Hotels Group, owned by China’s Jin Jiang, has signed an agreement to open two hotels under its own name in Damascus, it said on Saturday, a day after the UN announced an internal investigation into the bombing of hospitals in Syria.

The confirmation of the two hotels opening, after recent media reports, also came as at least six civilians were killed by the Syrian regime and Russian fire in northwestern Idlib province in the past days, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The region of around three million people, many of them displaced by fighting in other areas, is one of the last holdouts of opposition fighting against the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham alliance led by al-Qaeda’s former Syria affiliate controls most of Idlib as well as parts of neighbouring Aleppo and Latakia provinces.

A man mourns over the bodies of his three children and their cousin at a morgue in the basement of a makeshift hospital following a reported air strike by Syrian regime forces. Photo: AFP

The hotels “will open soon under the brand name of Louvre Hotels Group,” the French company said in a statement.

Louvre Hotels Group said the deal was signed between Syria’s Nazha Investment Group and “a partner with whom Louvre Hotels cooperates in the Middle East”.