Tara Marlow. Tara Marlow.

 Al Tamimi & Company head of property, Abu Dhabi and regional head of hospitality, Tara Marlow, explains the complicated process of hotel development, from inception to operation.

Images of an elegant and luxurious hotel, glimmering in the sun on a white sandy beach, surrounded by palm trees gently swaying in the warm breeze evokes in most, if not all of us, dreamy thoughts of glamour, relaxation, pampering and absolute delight.

Those in the industry know very well that whilst this is the experience that hotel personnel strive hard to provide for their guests, achieving this requires extreme hard work and dedication by the operator and hotel staff.

Story continues below
Advertisement

But this hard work doesn’t start and end there — this is the public face of the hotel.

The ‘private life’ of the hotel starts long before the first guest checks in. In many respects, the development process (which commences with identification of a development opportunity and ends with completion of the finished product), can be equally as difficult and demanding.

The hotel industry, whether you are an owner, developer or operator, is certainly not for the faint-hearted.

In this article, (to be produced in two parts), I have sought to outline the private life of the hotel — from inception through to its unveiling as the shiny finished product.

This journey is in fact far from simple, and the development process will take many twists and turns before it is completed.

However, in my experience as a legal adviser within the hotel industry, I believe it is beneficial to be knowledgeable of all the issues and steps involved, together with the required timing for these, so that the bigger picture is always to hand (and can therefore be better managed).

Whilst both an operator and an owner will each go through a similar process, this article focuses on the development process from an owner’s perspective.

I have chosen to do this because not all owners will have the same level of knowledge and experience of development or the hotel industry. This article therefore seeks to show, simplistically, just how complex the development process is and how important it is to get it right. Hotel development is too expensive a business to get wrong!