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.

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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.