Artist's impression of The Royal Amwaj Resort on Palm Jumeirah in Dubai, which will offer an all-inclusive option.
The consultant's opinion
Sven Gade, director and head of consulting at PKF The Consulting House and an expert on destination planning, shares his views…
Regarding all-inclusive, it is not surprising that the waves roll high and the opinions straddle the entire range of options. It’s a bit like timeshare, which has as many defenders as opponents.
Generally, all-inclusive is a concept that has developed a distinct market following and carries a group of customers who support the concept and book where it is available.
| Advertisement |
A risk is that it can end up with a “cheap” image, whereby all is inclusive, but the F&B provided may not of the best quality. Also, guests are often subject to fine print “rules” such as: only house beverages are included — branded or premium goods require separate payment.
This may not go well with an upmarket destination like Dubai — it can potentially erode the reputation and attract the wrong target clientele.
A risk specific to Dubai: all-inclusive has a lot to do with the provision of alcohol and may lead to two issues: overconsumption (because it’s free) and from that undesirable behaviour as a result.
This would have to be managed carefully to avoid bad experiences and strict responses from the authorities, which may spoil the holidays and in turn the reputation of the destination.
Finally, one underlying idea of all-inclusive offers is to keep guests from spending their holiday money outside their resort.
This in turn may prevent visitors from exploring and experiencing Dubai per se — even all-inclusive operators should have to link up with local guides and organisers to ensure that the destination is experienced.
Having said all that, all-inclusive does have distinct source markets and followers, which to date may not really have discovered ‘Destination Dubai’.
It is very possible to offer all-inclusive alongside à la carte packages and/or during low seasons only to increase utilisation — that is after all simply good yield management.
Search our database of more than 2,700 industry companies
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...