CAIRO: American hotel chain Marriott is to make a return to Tunisia, the country's ministry of tourism said on Thursday. According to Marriott's Middle East and North Africa CEO Jean Marc Grosfort, the hotel chain has reached the advance stages of negotiating on two new hotel projects. Grosfort met with Tunisian Tourism Minister Slim Tlatli in Morroco last week to discuss the final negotiations on the new properties. Grosfort added in a press statement that Marriott will start in Tunisia in early 2011 and that plans to add future hotels in the country are on the table. The hotel company wants to invest in other locations outside the Tunisian capital, Tunis, including the island of Djerba. The Marriott group is the owner of more than 3,500 hotels in the world and ten internationally renowned tourist management brands, the most prestigious of which is the Ritz Carlton hotel. A Ritz Carlton hotel is to open in Cairo sometime next year, after the American chain bought the longtime Nile Hilton Hotel last year. BM