HAVING completed a number of landmark hotel projects in the Makkah and Madinah area, Saudi Arabia’s Alarabi Decoration and Construction is now engaged in the decoration work on the highly-prestigious King Abdullah International Conference Centre project in Jeddah.

Alarabi has recently completed decorative gypsum works for the Dar Al Tawhid Hotel in Madinah and Safa Palace Hotel in Makkah, both of which were constructed by Saudi Oger. It had earlier completed the 1,320-suite Le Meridien Hotel and Towers, also in Makkah.

“We have recently started work on the Conference Palace that is being built next to the Jamjoom Centre on Jeddah’s corniche and Princess Nora University for Women in Riyadh and we are responsible for the decorative fibrous gypsum works for all the key areas of these prominent projects,” says the company’s business consultant Saleh M Saleh.

This apart, the Jeddah-based interior decoration specialist has recently taken on several high-rise projects in Makkah and Jeddah, and is confident of securing other hotel and other luxury developments taking shape in Saudi Arabia.

“Saudi’s recently-released 2010 budget indicates that the building and construction sector is the third largest of the economy, which has experienced rapid growth in recent years. Also, there is a surge in the construction of commercial and mixed-use buildings, shopping malls, hotels and residential villas and low-rise residential complexes by the private sector to support the rapidly growing population in Saudi Arabia. Hence, there is plenty of reason to be optimistic about our business prospects,” he says.

“We expect to be very busy over the next few years. We have started working on many prestigious projects of Saudi Oger in Jeddah and other cities. And there are several shopping malls and villas under construction across the country that demand the services of companies such as ours with products and skills to do the job,” he adds.

Commenting on trends in the interiors market, Saleh says: “With a huge amount of construction activity under way in the kingdom, there is greater demand for contemporary designs using gypsum. Classic and neo-classic interiors, however, are still popular in the luxury residential sector such as palaces.”

Founded by Faisal K Adham in Jeddah in 1982, Alarabi Decoration and Construction has grown to become a major interior and exterior decoration specialist in the Middle East. Over the past 28 years, Alarabi has undertaken a variety of decorative gypsum, special painting and artistic decoration works for numerous projects and clientele across the Middle East. Its expertise covers the entire spectrum of decoration works from gypsum decorative ceilings and walls to artistic painting applications, and from furniture and special woodworks to marble and glass mosaic and tiling works for pool and murals.

The décor specialist has enhanced its skills and broadened its scope of activities to include works such as parquet flooring, interior fit-outs and joinery, to enable it to implement interior projects on a turnkey basis. It is also now offering expertise in the application of Tadellakt as part of its contemporary interior design portfolio.

Tadellakt is a bright lime plaster waterproof coating traditionally used in the palaces, hammams and bathrooms in Morocco.

Alarabi has its head office and a 2,000-sq-m workshop in Jeddah, and a branch office and 500-sq-m workshop in Riyadh.

Overseas, its Kuwait operations (Alarabi International for Decoration) has seen its business grow consistently since its launch in 2004, while its Abu Dhabi office (Alarabi Decoration), set up in 2006, was recently involved in the multi-million-dollar refurbishment of the Abu Dhabi Intercontinental in the capital city.