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.

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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].