A major international hotel –with nearly three hundred rooms –will open for business in Juba by 2015.

According to the Sheraton group, who are building the hotel, it’s entry into central Juba will raise the standard of accommodation in the city as well as provide employment opportunities.

“The hotel itself will employ three to four hundred people and the vast majority will be local, the hotel itself will need supply food and beverage and support from other local business,” the President of the organization, Fritz van Paasschen was at the ground breaking ceremony in Juba.

Mr. van Paasschen said that travelers will come to Juba for good hotel accommodation and that will create more revenue for South Sudan.

“Business people (will come) here so that they can explore other opportunities as well,” he said.

The deputy governor of Central Equatoria State, Manase Lomole welcomed the building of the hotel which he said will greatly increase the profile of Juba and offer greater alternatives to people who want to travel to the capital.

“The hotels that we had in Juba were nothing but tents, but no more tents in Juba from now on. And I am appealing to the Mayor if somebody is still keeping tents for hotels, he or she must remove it off the city and I want to underline one aspect and that is training in the hospitality has to be factored in to the operation of this hotel.”

The hotel will be the seventeenth branch of Sheraton hotels in Africa — and when completed it will be the second modern high rise structure in Juba after the UAP building at Hai Neem residential area.