Showing off

During the recent spate of industry trade shows — AHIC, ATM and The Hotel Show — it wasn’t always the big announcements that caught Hotelier’s interests, rather the whispered conversations and secret handshakes going on at the sidelines.

We heard a few rumours that we’ve been able to confirm — Jumeirah’s shelving of the Venu brand (for now at least), TDIC’s cancellation of Banyan Tree’s contract in Abu Dhabi and the reflagging of Kempinski’s hotel in Zanzibar as a Sol Melia.

There are a few more we’re still chasing, most notably perhaps new ownership at Banyan Tree Al Wadi in Ras Al Khaimah. We have it on very good authority that the government has acquired it from Rakeen Development and expect significant investment in the emirate’s flagship property to follow. The deal was thought to be concluded at the end of May, so keep your eye on HotelierMiddleEast.com for the big announcement.

There was also a lot of F&B industry news doing the rounds, with some exciting new brands expected to come on the circuit.

Hakkasan has announced a branch in Dubai, for example, but the brand is also believed to be signing a deal for a restaurant at St.Regis Doha later this year, according to its GM, alongside a Gordon Ramsay restaurant.

A spokesperson for Hakkasan said they did “not comment on rumours and speculation”, but hotel GMs wouldn’t lie…would they?

Speaking of GMs, we were amused by the number of people approaching the GMs we interviewed, clearly after a new job. Although they weren’t quite brandishing their CVs, the desire to speak to those in charge of some of the most exciting upcoming properties was obvious; even though their own companies’ stands were sometimes just a matter of metres away.

But it works both ways — in an off-camera discussion with the panellists of a session on recruiting and retaining staff, it became apparent that the pinching of staff is a huge issue. Everyone does it, but that doesn’t make it right.

After all, as the HR experts pointed out, this means managers’ expectations are extremely high and packages and salaries run the risk of becoming inflated.

And, I’ve lost count of the number of GMs who proudly reeled off their new recruits and the star hotels they had come from. The poor Burj Al Arab certainly seems to have taken a beating on the butler front.

But nowhere was more robbed — or should I say mobbed — than the Hotelier Middle East stand at The Hotel Show. Our clever marketing team came up with the idea of creating trolleys in partnership with A.Ronai to give out to loyal readers needing a hand with carrying show-related collateral around with them.

Unfortunately, we rather underestimated the demand and spent much of the first morning frantically making them up for our visitors. In the end, we asked people to come and collect one at 3.30pm on the first day…the pictures show the results!

Phew, lucky it’s only 11 months until it all starts again…