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In September 2025, a client engaged Citius Research to support decision-making around market entry and expansion strategy within the Middle East HoReCa sector, with a particular focus on opportunities emerging under Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030.
The client is a regionally established Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) brand operating multiple formats across international markets. The brand has a strong focus on standardized operations, high-throughput locations, and franchised expansion models.
Market Context
The Middle East HoReCa industry is experiencing a significant change due to national diversification strategies, increasing tourism, and shifts in consumer habits. Unlike earlier hospitality trends that responded to demand, the current growth is guided by government policy. Officials are shaping demand through tourism development, entertainment options, and urban renewal.
Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 has become a key driving force. It is placing hospitality and foodservice at the centre of economic growth instead of seeing them as secondary service sectors. This shift has sped up investment in hotels, restaurants, catering services, and their supporting supply chains.
The Strategic Question
As money moves into hotels, restaurants, and catering platforms, those in the market face a key challenge: finding sustainable opportunities amid headline growth.
Although the number of new projects and brand entries shows strong momentum, success now relies more on where and how operators engage. Differences in demand at the city level, rising costs, and high competition add complexity. This situation calls for a careful understanding of the market, rather than relying on broad regional assumptions.
Our Analytical Perspective
This case study is based on an independent look at policy frameworks, tourism development trends, and actual market behavior in key GCC cities. The goal was to understand how Vision 2030 and related national initiatives are creating real demand in the HoReCa sector and where execution risks may arise.
Instead of viewing the Middle East as one growth market, our analysis examined how demand varies among different visitor types, urban areas, and occasions for consumption.
How Demand Is Being Shaped
Vision 2030 has changed the role of hospitality to support economic participation, social engagement, and global visibility. Tourism demand now includes not just international leisure travellers but also domestic tourists, religious visitors, entertainment seekers, and large-scale event audiences.
This variety in demand has significant effects on HoReCa formats. Mid-scale hotels, fast-casual dining, café culture, and institutional catering have developed into segments that are well-supported, thanks to repeat visitors and consistent consumption patterns throughout the year.
While overall demand is growing, the growth is not balanced. Some urban centers and districts are seeing a surge in restaurant openings. This increases competition and puts pressure on profits. In these areas, success depends less on having a unique concept and more on managing operations, controlling costs, and choosing the right locations.
Meanwhile, newer cities and development areas related to tourism and infrastructure projects offer opportunities for brands and suppliers that can partner early with long-term development plans.
What This Means for Market Participants
For investors, the opportunity lies in matching capital deployment with demand supported by policy, not just speculative supply growth. Hospitality assets and platforms tied to mixed-use developments and government-backed tourism initiatives usually provide better demand visibility.
For operators, scalability is increasingly linked to localization. Concepts that adjust menus, pricing, and service models to fit regional preferences are in a stronger position to protect margins and attract repeat customers. Models that require less investment, like franchising and management contracts, are also becoming more popular to handle capital exposure.
For suppliers and service providers, the HoReCa boom reaches beyond restaurants and hotels. Growth in catering, food logistics, kitchen infrastructure, and operational technology shows the industrialization of the sector.
Client Outcome & Impact
Following our engagement, the client moved forward with a clearly sequenced Middle East HoReCa strategy grounded in policy-backed demand and localized market realities rather than regional-level assumptions.
Our analysis helped the client focus on certain cities and development areas connected to Vision 2030 tourism initiatives. This allowed for better timing in capital deployment, reducing the risk of oversupply while improving forecast accuracy at the unit level.
By adjusting operating models to match regulatory changes and public-private partnerships, the client chose an asset-light expansion strategy. This approach sped up market entry while keeping capital usage in check. Insights on localization shaped menu designs, pricing, and service formats, enhancing expected unit performance and building resilience against cost increases.
Crucially, the client changed its internal decision-making from pushing for growth to focusing on returns. It revised timelines for expansion, site selection standards, and performance measures to prioritize execution risk over demand uncertainty..
As a result, the client entered the Middle East HoReCa market with:
- - Clear visibility on sustainable demand drivers
- - A diversified exposure across hospitality and foodservice segments
- - Reduced downside risk from market saturation
- - A scalable blueprint aligned with long-term Vision 2030 development plans
This engagement positioned the client to take part in the region's HoReCa growth cycle with measured risk, operational clarity, and a long-term strategy.