Industry divided over all-inclusive options

Artist's impression of The Royal Amwaj Resort on Palm Jumeirah in Dubai, which will offer an all-inclusive option.

As reported in the March issue of Hotelier Middle East, sales and marketing experts are a vocal bunch, passionate about the industry in which they work.

On topics including achieving value adds and rate parity, to working with the travel trade versus pushing direct bookings, they are likely to have firm and often differing opinions — as demonstrated in last month’s roundtable report (see It’s a customer’s world, pages 32-36, Hotelier Middle East, March 2011).

But the issue that caused the most consternation of all at this debate was that of all-inclusive hotels — and the impact this product offering would have should it be introduced to luxury markets like Dubai.

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The subject was raised by Ibn Battuta Gate and Royal Amwaj director of sales and marketing Andrew Hughes, who revealed that Royal Amwaj on Palm Jumeirah in Dubai, which is scheduled to open later this year, will offer an all-inclusive package.

This was vehemently objected to by Rezidor’s global director of sales and marketing Yigit Sezgin, who spoke from his experience of running all-inclusive properties in locations such as Egypt and Turkey.

Ibn Battuta Gate marketing manager Beth Thomas asserted that offering an all-inclusive package was simply a matter of enabling guest choice, while Kempinski regional director of sales Avsar Koc focused on its impact on the hotel’s business model.

This month, Hotelier picks up the debate and poses the question of the value of all-inclusive hotels to the wider industry, garnering feedback from the travel trade and destination management consultants to hotel investors and major operators.

What are your views on offering guests all-inclusive hotels and all-inclusive hotel packages?
Yigit Sezgin: Having hotels in Egypt as we do and being Turkish and having all-inclusive hotels in the Antalya region, I would say it’s a very dangerous issue.

Andrew Hughes: We’re going to have an all-inclusive option at Royal Amwaj. We believe it’s about guest choice. I think there’s absolutely room for the all-inclusive concept in Dubai and I think as long as you’re giving the customers choice and you’re positioning it as a premium product, not an exclusion-based product, [it will work].

So if a customer buys that experience, if they want to eat the lobster in the à la carte restaurant, they can eat the lobster. If they want three drinks at the pool at lunchtime, they can have three drinks sat by the swimming pool at lunchtime.

Avsar Koc: I think the key word is the all-inclusive option. The days are long gone when you box people in on a single concept.