Come next year, Johannesburg will have a shiny, globally recognised addition to its hotel offering. In January, a Park Hyatt — just the third in Africa — will open in the city’s vibrant Rosebank district, marking the arrival of one of the global hospitality group’s most luxurious brands. 

For Hamza Farooqui, the local entrepreneur behind the deal, it will also mark five years of work bringing global brands to South Africa. It’s a tactic he says is the “secret sauce” not only to business success, but also to growing the country’s tourism and hospitality industries. 

“Global brands are supposed to give access to a best-of-breed experience,” says Mr Farooqui, founder and CEO of family-owned private equity firm Millat Group, which owns the new Park Hyatt. “But to expand into and understand destinations like Africa, they need someone who can provide local guidance, local curation and ultimately execute.”

Multinationals often expound on the importance of local partners when entering new countries. Millat is playing this exact role, while also stumping up the capital to fund the globally-branded projects. 

Since 2020, Millat has invested ZAR1.5bn ($82m) to bring three international hotel, food and beverage chains to the country. In addition to the new Park Hyatt, since the onset of the pandemic, Millat has opened two Hyatt Houses in Johannesburg and a Hyatt Regency in Cape Town. Today, they are the only hotels bearing the Hyatt brand in the country. 

In early 2024, Millat introduced Pret A Manger to the continent, opening its first two stores in South Africa under an exclusive licence for southern Africa with the UK group. Mr Farooqui plans to open up to 60 more stores over the next three years. And in 2022, the group started rolling out North American convenience store chain Circle K across the country via an exclusive licence for Africa. 

Future-proofing emerging market travel

Mr Farooqui believes his strategy — described as being the local “jockey” for global brands — can help future-proof emerging markets for, and grow their appeal among, international travellers. 

This is because global brands bring credibility, and even the most experienced travellers like familiarity when in unfamiliar places. “Brands create trust,” he says. “For markets like Africa, and other emerging markets, that’s a big challenge.” 

The second way global brands help boost tourism industries is through training. “People are the biggest cog in this entire business. It’s not the money, it’s not even the brand — it’s the people,” Mr Farooqui says. While many governments are focused on hospitality training programmes, he argues that global chains have “billions of dollars behind them” and have for decades been upskilling people. “If you get an unbranded employee to become a Hyatt employee, all of a sudden they’ve got access to world-class training [and] they become a lot more employable.” The ripple effect of this is “a customer-centric culture which can really unlock the value of a local destination”, he adds. 

While not every emerging market is fortunate enough to have a Millat, being a source of local capital as well as knowledge, others can learn from its capital-light approach. Millat hasn’t built its Hyatts, Pret A Mangers and Circle Ks from the ground up, but rather converted them from brownfield assets. “We believe you can take existing infrastructure and redo it better with global brands,” says Mr Farooqui.

At the end of the day, this maximises the impact not only for the investor but the local industry, too. “When brands come into a country or city, they raise its profile and skillset,” says Mr Farooqui. “They raise competition as well. But that also grows demand, and that’s when you start becoming a lot more of a palatable destination.”

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This article first appeared in the December 2024/January 2025 print edition of fDi Intelligence