The Oman Tourism Development Company (Omran) has invited contractors to submit bids 5 July for the contract to build the new Crowne Plaza Duqm Hotel resort.

The resort, which will be built on the Arabian Sea coast of the sultanate, will have 228 rooms, including 11 executive suites and six smaller suites.

The Crowne Plaza’s parent company, Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG), signed an agreement to manage the new hotel in December 2008 (MEED 2:12:08).

The resort will be the group’s sixth hotel project in Oman.

In March, Omran received bids from 11 firms for the contract to supervise and manage the construction of the hotel project.

UAE-based Module Engineering Consultant submitted the lowest bid with a price of OR311,100 ($813,141). This is 24.4 per cent lower than the OR414,000 price submitted by the second lowest bidder, the local Engineering Studies Office & Partners.

The local Ibn Khaldun Almadaen Engineering Consultants submitted the third lowest bid with a price of OR528,400.

The government is developing a number of major projects in Duqm including an airport, a coal-fired power station and a ship repair and drydock complex.

In 2008, a consortium of the local Galfar Engineering & Contracting and South Korea’s Daewoo Engineering & Construction won the contract to build the ship repair and drydock complex at the Duqm port.

The consoritum is building two 410-metre docks, 2.8 kilometres of quay wall, crane foundations and office buildings.

It is being financed through a $660m loan from the Japan Bank for International Co-operation (JBIC) (MEED 18:1:08).