The lucrative world of events
Conference, banqueting and events managers reveal their key sources of business and the challenges the meetings sector still needs to overcome.
The UAE is home to a variety of events destinations: Dubai Festival City, Dubai Media City and Yas Island Abu Dhabi for example.
One of the newest additions to this collection is the Grandstand at The Meydan in Dubai, which offers 70,000m² space inside and 25,000m² area outside and recently hosted 81,000 guests at the Dubai World Cup 2011.
It thus fit the bill perfectly for Hotelier’s events managers’ roundtable, which was held at the sumptuous Prime steakhouse.
The roundtable brought together experts in event sales, operations and F&B, who debated the challenges and trends in their business — and picked each other’s brains on several pressing issues.
Do you want to know what the most lucrative events are? Or are you wondering whether to invest in video conferencing? Read on to find out the tips from our experts…
Events managers are tricky to pin down, and job titles and responsibilities vary greatly. Tell us about your role and your hotel’s events facilities?
Theresa S. Dommett: I’m director of business development with the grandstand at The Meydan, selling mostly events, concerts and conferences. We are set up similar to a hotel sales team so that our team is very proactive — we go out, we get business, we make sales calls and when we get it and get the contract tied, we hand it over to our events team.
The reason for that is we are aggressively trying to sell the grandstand and we know we need people out there constantly knocking on doors, seeing customers and selling.
We have an incredible venue, it’s only been open a year January. It was originally just for racing last year, we did a few events but now that we’ve got racing under our belt and we know how the venue works, we decided to put a sales team in which started in December.
The grandstand was actually built to do more than just racing because it’s a year-round venue — we have an Imax theatre, a gallery space, 72 breakouts, so it’s incredible what we can do in terms of small conferences.
We’ve done concerts, most of them in conjunction with our racing. Last year we had Sting, Elton John and Santana and this year we had Super Thursday Sound on Super Thursday, we had Jesse J on World Cup day and then we had the Here and Now concert in early April.
Thomas Inasu: I’m fairly new to the events side of things. I have my master who’s been there forever, Hector Mendonca, he’s always been in events and he’s moved on to restaurants so he’s the guiding force.
He’s been there and done it all — the hotel’s been there for 16 years [Mendonca started in 1993]. How the hierarchy works there is I’m the banquet manager, I report to the director of F&B in charge of all the operation, and we’re looking at hiring a director of event sales who reports to the director of sales.
We’ve got about 31,000ft² of space with 22 meeting rooms and we do a lot of outside catering, be it desert safaris or dhow cruises, and we also have quite a good record of doing concerts, from the last Usher concert to Santana and Cirque du Soleil a couple of years ago.
We do a lot of outside catering and, looking at the business, that is certainly one aspect where we are looking at growing, because a lot of your outside catering becomes destination specific, for example The Meydan, Festival City, so we need to look at other options for these big events.
The tag ‘eventsbyjw’ is something that we kicked off at this property about five years ago and Hector was actually instrumental in doing that. They’ve started implementing this across the board, but it’s gradual.
Arne Silvis: The events or MICE business is certainly starting now under the Starwood umbrella, which we will push quite hard. It’s not something we used to do, but certainly something we’d like to develop.
Previously under Emirates [management], Al Maha resembled the peaceful, tranquil, desert, indigenous, Arabian, authentic experience, and we would like to make the resort more accessible. We’ve had a number of small groups for conferences, but we have a 500m² space, which is tiny.
The largest group I’ve ever handled there was 75 people, taking the entire resort.
But I think what makes it special is we offer all the desert-based activities and field activities, and the conferences and events that we have held there have all been half-day conferencing and half-day team building, making use of our leisure desert facilities. On average we have about two MICE groups of between 30-50 people a month.
Mahmoud Abualsoud: We have a huge conference facility, we have the biggest ballroom on Sheikh Zayed Road, which is 1400m² called the Samaya ballroom.
We have eight meeting rooms in addition. Since the opening in January we have had back-to-back big events, either awards or gala dinners, big conferences, even weddings, we cater almost for everything.
Lucile Falguieres: We have an amazing floor actually, the 33rd floor events and conference centre. We have 18 meeting spaces, the largest meeting space can accommodate 200 people.
It’s a one-stop-shop, we have the business centre there, the restaurant, it’s very convenient as well for corporate events and meetings. If you want 10 break out rooms we have those, we also have small meeting rooms that can accommodate five people.
Chadi Melhem: At Emirates Palace we have a lot of venues, we have 43 conference rooms, we have a ballroom which can seat 2400 guests and we have an auditorium which can take up to 1090 people, plus a lot of outdoor areas where we do conferences, weddings and different events.
Natalie Kurz: The structure of the team is we have proactive sales and reactive sales.
So basically my part is overlooking the reactive sales, proactive of course gets the business in, reactive conference and events converts it, organises it and hands over to banquet operations, so I would say pretty much the classic example of the structure. At Ibn Battuta Gate, we have 11 meetings rooms and a ballroom plus our grand hall Al Bahou, which can cater for up to 1200 guests.
How have clients’ demands changed in recent years?
TD: Technology is a huge part of venue programming nowadays; what AV you have in house, what AV they have to get, what’s your Wi-Fi capability etc.
We’re lucky at the grandstand because we telecast the races live internationally, so we have a lot of that built in. We have free Wi-Fi throughout the entire grandstand so that’s a big thing for clients.
We find more clients look online nowadays before they call or send an email to see what you have and the internet is really important.
MA: People now have very high expectations regarding being contactable. People have their Blackberrys, they are always very contactable. Guests now expect you to respond 24/7.
AS: In early February, we had a large pharmaceutical group from Europe take the entire resort for three days — but on the condition that we upgrade our AV and sound systems.
So they sent their technicians out ahead and had a look at it and we had to spend in excess of AED 100,000 (US $27,224) to bring it up to the level which they wanted. They said we will not confirm the booking unless you actually do that, so we forked out the money and they stayed and they had a fantastic time.
Has video conferencing been as big a business as many predicted at the start of the recession?
LF: During the recession we said that companies will have less budget for travel, let’s purchase video conferencing equipment — we purchased this and it did work well.
However, we have one limitation and I just want to see if the rest of you have the same one. In Dubai they offer the ISDN line connection. In Europe, for example, the line sometimes is IP and they don’t connect and you can’t do any video conferencing if you have this different connection.
A lot of clients came and said ‘well I have IP there, how am I going to do this?’ We were not able to accommodate some video conferencing because of the difference in connection.
MA: We have video conferencing as well and I agree with Lucile. The line alone is extremely expensive, but the demand is not as much as we had expected it to be.
TD: When I was at Jumeirah Emirates Towers we put in three video conferencing facilities because they were so popular and we didn’t end up having that challenge.
AS: If it’s seamless it’s great, if it flunks out halfway through your conference you’re in serious trouble.
TI: The one thing that we do to kind of get over this is use these online meeting websites. You can actually set it up for your client — this is only for your voice, put them on the Spiderphone, for the video use something like Skype or one of the common ones and it works brilliantly well.
CM: We are using the Polycom, a video conference room with a screen, and cameras. The main issue is that we cannot give [clients] a number [to give people to dial in on] — you need to dial out for security reasons. So many clients like this idea of the Polycom because it’s faster, it’s secure.
NK: For us it wouldn’t make sense [to invest in video/tele-conferencing] because of the ROI; we would be talking about five to 10 years so we wouldn’t invest in something like this.
But coming back to the demand of the clients, I think nowadays the clients will ask for what they want and we either apply it or they go to the competition, so they’re very well educated, they know exactly what they’re talking about, especially here locally and then they compare you.
They really like to tell you ‘this is my budget, you either meet it or I’m going to the competition’. It’s tough.
CM: At Emirates Palace, it’s very expensive and corporate-wise we cannot compete with the market. You know the market is dropping the rate tremendously, we cannot do that, so we work on standards and service.
NK: I definitely think corporate business is picking up and we’re seen as a MICE destination worldwide, but we’re still perceived as being very expensive, which is a pity.
I think the challenge that we face is to overcome the perception of being not affordable and to know that with all the competition coming up — which is very difficult, we all know it — we have to fight for the business, we have to be faster, we have to be more flexible.
AS: We have to work harder for business, definitely. When Al Maha first started 10 years ago we were the only one exclusive resort out there, now there’s a number of other desert resorts, Bab Al Shams, Banyan Tree Al Wadi, Six Senses Zighy Bay, Qasr Al Sarab, Anantara Desert Islands.
I can see the Starwood machine already kicking in, all those GSOs out there fighting much harder. The initial sell is the hardest for us, once the event manager or the client actually walks on site, the property sells almost without exception.
What is the break down of your events business and which events are lucrative?
CM: For us weddings is only 10% [of our events portfolio]. It’s more government; we do more than 60% of our events in government business.
TI: We have a 50% wedding share. It’s a brilliant wedding market for us. We have a whole weddings sales team that is dedicated only to socials and weddings. They’ve been there for quite a while and they do a brilliant job. It’s most of the day’s turnaround for me.
TD: For us it’s only about 5-10 % because we’re so new in the market and the weddings that we’ve done have been very special. We’ve got a deck that you can host 1000 people on and you have the skyline of the Burj Khalifa, so it’s beautiful.
We hope to grow that more because it is a very lucrative market and we have the space. We have someone dedicated to do the social market. I don’t think [weddings will] ever be 50%.
TI: Do you have any cut off for the wedding bookings? How far out can the wedding team actually book out your weddings?
MA: For us as long as it’s over a weekend, it’s not a problem. Being in the financial district, weekdays are very, very busy with conferences, so as long as it’s weekend we book it.
TI: We have a time window for the wedding booking which is always a handicap for the team; if not they would have literally taken me over. They can’t book anything over three months out because that’s taking up your space for conferences.
NK: But are you so busy at the weekends? For example in Abu Dhabi when I was at the InterContinental, there we had 40% of business coming from weddings and it’s very lucrative like you said, because with one wedding, especially big local weddings, you have 1000-1200 people and a huge ballroom and all the facilities, so the revenue that you would make on one function is very extreme. But on the weekends, business wasn’t there.
TI: The thing is most of our conference groups come from overseas and the weekend dates vary between here and Europe/US.
Or they come in over the weekend to do the set ups and then they probably start the conference in the week.
MA: Actually in general for conferences, especially for pharmaceutical, they are over the weekend as well.
TD: It’s amazing it’s still 50% of your business with the three-month period.
Talking of short booking periods, are lead times still a problem? (This question was greeted with an overwhelming yes!)
LF: A few days ago we had a sit down dinner for 50 people with set menu. Everything was organised. Two hours prior to dinner the organiser says he wants to change the menu if it’s possible. Two hours! We are flexible but there is a limit to it. You just have to make the client understand that the food is already prepared.
MA: I have an example of an engagement for 500 people who came a week before — they wanted to finalise everything in a week’s time and the event was done.
NK: The point is you have to find a balance between flexibility and being realistic. You want to deliver, but at the end of the day you want to get paid so you want to have the money as well.
When it’s last minute, operations is not the challenge, I find it more challenging to get the contract signed and get the payment and deposit prior to the function, which we are very strict with.
For example, in previous hotels, when I joined there were millions outstanding, so it’s great to take last minute bookings to fill the hotel, but if you don’t get paid it’s not what we want.
So I find it more challenging to get the whole package, to have the customer satisfied, to promise something that you can deliver, but also to have everything in place and paid for.
MA: And sometimes actually there is a challenge of the numbers when it’s last minute, the changes sometimes are dramatic. You have a guaranteed number of 500 people and 700 show up. The payment part is another challenge as well.
So people leave their booking to the last-minute get a better deal?
TD: Yes, but there is just so much competition, there is so much availability. So they have the choice now, whereas a few years back if you didn’t book it the minute you saw it, it wouldn’t be available.
We also have the opposite challenge where we get a lot of leads quite far out but they’re not confirmed until closer in, just because they’re doing lots of shopping around and seeing how they can get the best deal.
If you only have one ballroom you have to push your client to make the decision, but we have other spaces to offer other clients.
NK: You just have to make a judgment call and you might sometimes be wrong. For example, you push the other client but we all know, as it has happened to all of us, you lost both businesses for whatever reason and then your function space is empty.
There are so many aspects you have to take into consideration. You sometimes need to make the decision to say ‘we cannot hold the space any longer, we have to release it’ and maybe run the risk then of having it empty.
Looking forward, what other lucrative events are you trying to encourage?
TD: We’re looking at more gala dinners and concerts.
TI: It’s about a lot more concerts for us. In 2008, 2007, outside catering was probably a good 20-23%. 2010 was very quiet for us but we do see a lot of interest and pick up in 2011.
CM: Emirates Palace used to bring concerts before Flash came in — we did Justin Timberlake, Bon Jovi etc. The most important thing in order to do a concert is to establish how many people you are expecting and where exactly these people are going to park.
The parking we used to use is now closed. But we are still doing concerts in the auditorium.
Generally, you need to advise the client. A lot of people want to do an event, but for you it’s very important to take into consideration the operation and logistics of that event and at the end of the day, [its impact upon] the name of the place [your reputation].
Getting to know you: Hotelier's expert panel
Theresa S. Dommett
Director of business development
Meydan Hotels & Hospitality
American Theresa Dommett has nine years experience of sales and events in the UAE. She joined The Meydan from Atlantis The Palm in December. Prior to that, Dommett worked at Jumeirah Emirates Towers for six years. She has previously held roles at Atlantis in The Bahamas and resorts across the Caribbean.
Thomas Inasu
Banquet manager
JW Marriott Dubai
Thomas Inasu has been working with Marriott for more than six years, firstly at the Baltimore Marriott in the US and then at JW Marriott Dubai for the past four years. His background is in restaurants and Inasu was previously director of beverage.
Arne Silvis
General manager
Al Maha Desert Resort and Spa
Arne Silvis has been general manager at Al Maha for eight and a half years, bringing with him a wealth of experience from managing conservation and activity-based leisure resorts in Zambia, Namibia and Botswana. The Emirates-owned resort was rebranded under The Luxury Collection by Starwood six months ago.
Mahmoud Abualsoud
Catering and conference services manager
The Ritz-Carlton, Dubai International Financial Centre
Mahmoud Abualsoud started his career in his home country of Egypt, firstly with Accor and then moving to Marriott in Alexandria. He came to Dubai with Hyatt Worldwide Reservations and then transferred into Hyatt’s events management team. An events manager role at Shangri-La Dubai followed before Abualsoud joined the pre-opening team of Ritz-Carlton DIFC.
Lucile Falguieres
Director, conference services and catering
Fairmont Dubai
After graduating in hospitality management in Switzerland, Lucile Falguieres was taken onto the leadership and development programme in the f&b division at Fairmont Hotels & Resorts. She then moved to sales and marketing and after five and half years, was promoted to director of conference services and catering at Fairmont Dubai.
Chadi Melhem
Sales manager, conference and banqueting
Emirates Palace
Lebanon-born Chadi Melham began his career in his home country working in various roles in F&B and front office. He moved to Abu Dhabi for the pre-opening of Emirates Palace in 2005 and has worked his way up in the conference and banqueting team.
Natalie Kurz
Director of conference and events
Mövenpick Hotel Deira, Oceana Hotel & Spa, The Royal Amwaj Resort & Spa and Ibn Battuta Gate Hotel
Natalie Kurz joined Mövenpick in August 2009, firstly in the pre-opening office and then launching the events divisions at Ibn Battuta Gate and Mövenpick Deira. Two more properties will follow over the next 12 months. Previously, Kurz worked at InterContinental Abu Dhabi and prior to that, she held roles for different brands and individual boutique hotels in a variety of locations, from Australia to Egypt to Spain.