The number of hotel rooms under construction is steadily growing in the GCC, with the UAE’s count of 17,137 rooms and Saudi Arabia’s 15,415 under-construction rooms leading the figures for the region. Unipods was launched to serve, amongst others, exactly this very hospitality industry, known in the region for its demands of speedy and quality construction.
Unipods construction technology enables fully functional bathroom and kitchen units to be manufactured in controlled factory environments, away from the construction site, thus enabling quality and standardised production of units for immediate use.
Saving time and cost – of labour and raw materials – is of critical importance across the hospitality sector, which in the Middle East can tend towards extravagant construction practices. While Europe has implemented technologies like Unipods for the last seven decades, the trend has only popularised in the region since the last four years and Unipods is one of the few known local manufacturers of such technology. 
Sadig Abuagla, head of marketing for Unipods, told Big Project ME that the manufacturer can deliver more than 10,000 bathroom and 50,000 kitchen units to the market and has even doubled its capacity this year.
Production within controlled parameters means Unipods units are fit for use across all segments of the hospitality market ranging from two-star to five-star hotels. Two- and three-star hotels contribute approximately 22% of room nights in the UAE and the increased demand for more such hotels in the GCC means developers want to build quality products much faster than they have ever before.
Drawing from the success of five-star hotels which have used Unipods technology for their projects, developers of budget hotels are also moving away from the traditional methods of sanitary ware installations towards the use of pods, Abuagla added.
Saudi Arabia is a strong market for Unipods technology given the high religious tourism traffic it is known for, especially in the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah. Time restrictions and tight deadlines for construction in such locations make Unipods the ideal choice for developers seeking durability, convenience and speed of construction on their projects.
The prestigious projects Unipods has worked on, such as the Holiday Inn hotel and El Hejoun hote in Makkah; the Premier Inn hotel in India and the ongoing Al Habtoor staff accommodation project are clear indicators that the GCC markets will slowly, but surely grow and adapt to the unconventional benefits of using technologies such as Unipods.
