Hotel & Hospitality Fit-out: Design & Build for Hotels, Resorts, Restaurants and Cafés

Hospitality fit-out is where interior design, engineering and operations meet. A guest room, lobby, restaurant or café has to look right on opening day and keep performing under heavy daily use, with services, acoustics, lighting and fire-life-safety all coordinated. NoVi Designs & Finishing delivers hotel and hospitality projects as a single design & build partner, accountable from the first survey to handover, for owners and operators in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Request a proposal with your drawings or brief, and we will come back with a scope, a BOQ-based quotation and a realistic programme.

What we deliver for hospitality projects

• Hotels and resorts: guest rooms and suites, lobbies and reception, corridors, spa and wellness areas, back-of-house.
• Restaurants, cafés and bars: front-of-house interiors, bars and counters, coordination with kitchen equipment suppliers, and outdoor seating.
• Serviced apartments and clubhouses: repeatable room types and shared amenities in compounds and mixed-use developments.

One contract from design to handover

Hospitality projects fail at the interfaces between the designer, the MEP contractor, the joinery shop and the operator. We remove those interfaces:

1. Survey and brief: as-built survey, operator standards and brand guidelines, and your target opening date.
2. Concept and detailed design: layouts, material palettes, lighting and joinery details, produced by our architects and interior designers.
3. BOQ and value engineering: an itemised bill of quantities so you see exactly what you are paying for, with alternatives where they protect the design intent.
4. MEP and fit-out: electrical, plumbing, HVAC and fire-life-safety coordination, then ceilings, partitions, flooring, finishes and joinery.
5. Testing and handover: snagging, commissioning support and as-built documentation for your operations team.

Built for daily hospitality use

Hospitality interiors are judged by guests every day. We specify finishes for wear and cleaning, plan lighting scenes for different times of day, treat acoustics in dining and lobby spaces, and design back-of-house routes so staff can work without crossing guest areas. Our quality management follows ISO 9001, with inspection and test plans at each stage.

A hospitality interior design company that also builds

Many hotel and restaurant owners hire a hospitality interior design firm for the drawings, then look for a separate contractor to build them, and details get lost between the two. At NoVi the same team that designs your guest rooms, lobby, restaurant or café also produces the shop drawings, the BOQ and the site works, so the finished space matches the approved design. Our hospitality interior design covers the concept and its story, space planning around guest and service flows, lighting design, selection of materials and of furniture, fixtures and equipment, custom joinery, and coordination of signage with your brand standards.

Outside Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the same design team works as your hospitality interior designers only, producing the concept, detailed design, 3D visuals and tender-ready drawings for your local contractor.

Where we work

We deliver full design & build and fit-out execution in Egypt (Cairo, New Capital, Sheikh Zayed, 6th of October, the Red Sea and the North Coast) and Saudi Arabia, with a regional office in Olaya, Riyadh. For hospitality projects in the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, we provide architectural and interior design services, working with your local contractor.

Selected hospitality work

Our hospitality portfolio spans city hotels in Cairo, resorts on the Red Sea, boutique properties on the North Coast and in Fayoum, and hotels, spas and cafés in Saudi Arabia. On the projects below NoVi's commission was design (interior or architectural). Each case study page lists the facts as published in our portfolio.

• Fairmont Nile City, Cairo: lobby and lounge interiors for a 562-room hotel, built around a natural, elegant and contemporary concept.
• Shams Hotels and Resorts, Red Sea: an interior design revamp of 1,300 m² of guest rooms, reception, restaurant and a multi-purpose hall at a resort south of Marsa Alam.
• The Oasis Dive Resort, Marsa Alam: 900 m² of hospitality interiors in a contemporary, oasis-inspired style.
• Talisman Hotel, Zamalek: 940 m² of reception, restaurant and waiting-area interiors in a modern luxury style.
• Longchamps Hotel, Zamalek: modern double rooms planned within 30 m².
• Tulip Hotel, New Cairo: 145 m² of rooms and suites in a modern style.
• Lazib Inn Hotel, Tunis Village, Fayoum: 760 m² of reception, bar lounge and waiting areas in a retro contemporary style.
• Le Sidi Boutique, North Coast: 700 m² of boho chic reception and waiting areas.
• Hilton Embassy Suites, Makkah: architectural and façade design and hospitality planning for 392 two-room suites on a site of about 3,849 m².
• Nasmet El Gamal Spa, Madinah: three floors of salon, lounge and treatment rooms in a calm, earthy palette.
• Hassan Café, Riyadh and a restaurant and café in Sheikh Zayed: food and beverage interiors, furniture, lighting and custom joinery.

Refurbishing a hotel that stays open

A large share of hotel work is the refurbishment of a property that keeps trading. The plan has to protect revenue as much as the programme. We agree with the operator which floors, wings or room blocks come out of inventory and when, and we phase the works so the rest of the hotel keeps selling rooms.

• Separation: dust-sealed hoarding, negative-pressure zones where needed, and a separate contractor entrance, lift or stair so crews and materials never cross guest routes.
• Noise windows: noisy works such as demolition and coring are scheduled in agreed hours, and public areas like lobbies and restaurants are often done at night or in short closures.
• Live systems: fire alarm, sprinklers, emergency lighting and the systems feeding occupied floors stay live and are tested before each zone is handed back.
• Fast handback: each zone is snagged, cleaned and handed back to housekeeping as a finished block, not left half done.

Model rooms, furniture and long-lead items

Hotels repeat the same room dozens or hundreds of times, so a detail that is wrong once is wrong everywhere. On projects with repeated room types we recommend building a model room first. The owner and the operator test it for function, cleaning, lighting and sound, and the approved model becomes the reference for every room after it.

Furniture, fixtures and equipment, lighting, sanitaryware, door hardware and fabrics are often imported or made to order, and they decide the opening date more than the site works do. We build the procurement schedule backwards from the opening, place long-lead orders early, and produce custom joinery in batches that match the room rollout.

Resorts on the Red Sea and the North Coast

Resort projects in Marsa Alam, Hurghada, El Gouna or on the North Coast add their own challenges. Sites can be far from suppliers, so we plan deliveries in consolidated batches and keep spares of critical items on site. Salt air, sun and humidity attack metal and fabric, so we specify corrosion-resistant ironmongery and fixings, outdoor-rated fabrics and finishes that tolerate sand and UV. On the North Coast, where many properties trade mainly in summer, we programme the works for the off-season so the resort opens on time for its peak.

Restaurants, cafés and spas

Food and beverage spaces need kitchen layouts, extraction, drainage and acoustics worked out before the interior design is final. Our restaurant and café fit-out page explains how we deliver stand-alone outlets in Cairo. Spas and wellness areas need waterproofing, ventilation and humidity control in wet rooms, privacy between treatment rooms and finishes that stay safe under bare feet.

What drives the cost of a hospitality fit-out

• Refurbishment of a trading hotel versus a full fit-out of a new shell.
• The operator's brand standards and the finishes and systems they require.
• The condition of existing MEP, and whether it is upgraded or replaced.
• Kitchen, laundry and back-of-house scope.
• The furniture and lighting level, and local versus imported finishes.
• Phasing, night work and protection needed to keep the hotel open.
• Site logistics for remote resort locations.

This is why we quote from an itemised BOQ after a survey, not from a price per square metre.

Start your hospitality project

Every hotel and restaurant has its own concept, operator standards and budget, so we do not work from price lists. Share your brief and drawings through our proposal request, or book a site survey, and we will define the scope with you.