Artist's impression of The Royal Amwaj Resort on Palm Jumeirah in Dubai, which will offer an all-inclusive option.
Beth Thomas: Some guests don’t want to move from the hotel when they go on holiday, other guests might want to do some exploring, other guests, because of business, will be out of the hotel. But it’s got to be guest choice.
Andrew Hughes: I think also it’s a misnomer that it’s not profitable; the maths can show you that an all-inclusive can be highly profitable if it’s managed the right way.
There are certain elements and patterns on consumption on peak days and low days and when people are out of the hotel [to consider] — so I think that once we do this, more resorts in the region will follow suit because we’ll be able to show the profitability.
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I think it hasn’t happened here in Dubai because historically F&B has been such an important element in these resorts’ budget lines that the fear is that if we were to go all-inclusive we would lose all of these revenues out of our food and beverage.
It’s almost going to take a new hotel to come in to show the value and to see how effective it is and then others will follow suit.
Yigit Sezgin: I just want to say that I’m sorry, but I totally disagree. It’s a big virus, once you plug it in you can’t get it back. It’s a big danger.
Why do you consider all-inclusive hotels to pose such a danger?
Yigit Sezgin: I’ve seen it in several places. First of all, in the market there’s a big demand for it. You go into any leisure market, feeder markets, in Scandinavia, UK, Germany, there is a serious demand.
What we are trying to do at the moment, for example, is to get one of our properties in Egypt out of being all-inclusive and it’s absolutely impossible.
The thing is people start to choose that and then the tour operators start to threaten you and say: ‘If you don’t give me the option I can’t sell you because this is the demand. I cannot sell only B&B or half board or even full board’.
You start it with exclusive options and higher prices so you keep your margins, [but] there are very few resorts and destinations that I know today that are actually able to hold on to those margins and to the quality because the people who book and spend money in Dubai properties, in the resort properties especially, would not like to be together with the ones that are coming for the all-inclusive option.
Another thing I’d like to say is it’s very dangerous for the local economy, because most of the people that come to all-inclusive options will never leave the hotel so they don’t buy outside, they do not eat outside, they do not drink outside.
[If you start] then the rest will follow naturally and not everybody is going to do it the way that you do it and it’s an access demand issue; once you do not have the strong demand then people will start to lower the rates like they have done in 2009 and 2010 and then you’ll go into these margin issues, you go into profitability issues, and you cannot deliver what the property needs to offer.
I think it’s very dangerous for your brand.
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Apr 21, 2011 , United Kingdom
I think we need to stop comparing the Dubai all inclusive concept with hotels in destinations such as Egypt and Turkey. They are very different to aspirational Dubai and we should be looking at hotels in Mauritius or the Caribbean as a benchmark. Understandably, the tax and duty levels are diff...