The ground floor suites in the six mansions enable direct beach access and have become best sellers.
Summer strategy
Software and hardware aside, the sales and marketing strategy over the summer period is also obviously key. There has been high demand from Europe, UK, Germany, Switzerland and France, as well as the high-end Russian market, with GCC travellers sometimes taking second place behind Europe.
“The GCC market has really come very strong, there are times when it has been number two, number three. If you add Dubai, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, all the GCC [countries], they at times make up number two market share for the month,” says Payne.
“We do believe that the acknowledgment of our property by the GCC market will definitely help us in the low seasons and we’ve seen even last weekend [May 26-28], we went up to the mid-high 70s, nearly 80% over the weekend, with suites and even villas being of a high request. It’s short stay but that’s what the GCC market is about”.
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To help support this market and that of One&Only’s key European feeder markets over the summer months, the resort launched a summer package called Families Travelling in Style on June 15. Running until September 30, guests that book a room for two adults will receive a second room at 50% off the room rate for a maximum of three children or teenagers, when staying three nights or more.
“We mustn’t forget if someone goes on holiday they don’t want to go to a hotel where they’re getting less than what they have at home.
“I don’t believe parents have their kids sitting in the same room at home, so why would they come on holiday at a top-end boutique hotel and camp children on rollaway beds in the same room as mum and dad,” Payne observes.
Knowing me, knowing you
Understanding — and indeed knowing — the guests forms a major part of the One&Only philosophy and this is something Payne intends to build upon at The Palm.
“I always thought that I wanted to be a big hotel operator, I worked for a few Grand Hyatts, I did my time in big hotels and I got a real buzz out of it,” he recalls. “Then with time as I moved from hotel to hotel I began to realise that we never really...we didn’t honestly know our guests.”
Managing a boutique property, he says enables “more of an impact on the guest experience”.
“In a boutique hotel the guest expectation is that he is not just someone checking in and checking out. This person is coming to our home and this is what I tell all our staff — this hotel is our home and the people that come here are our guests coming to our home.
“These guests expect personalised recognition, personalised contact and I would say that working in and managing a 90-room hotel is a lot more intense, a lot more demanding — if you really want to push the bar at the top — than a 300-, 400-, 500-room hotel. Everybody has to stand and be accounted for on a service side and every employee is going to make an impact and a difference with the guest because we are so small. You create relationships with your guests and that is what is the difference,” says Payne.
One&Only, therefore, does not run a loyalty programme, he explains, with the GM and the team building “more of a personal loyalty” with guests, achieved partly through the personal entertaining that formed such a huge part of Payne’s role as GM at Reethi Rah.
“I’ll be very honest. I haven’t unfortunately done as much as I’d like to so far because of the work of setting the hotel up, but I know that once we start into the high season I want to be doing a lot more and it’s about being out there with your guests. In two, three months time, everybody here will know exactly what they have to do so I will spend my entire time with the guests,” explains Payne.
GM’s Favourites
The interior concept of One&Only The Palm — created by WA International — combines the history and culture of Andalusia with a modern twist. Highlights for Payne include the dramatic and decadent backdrop of signature restaurant Stay by Yannick Alléno and the free-flowing feel from lobby to ocean.
Overall though, he says: “I love the way the hotel at night is a totally different hotel”. This is partly because it’s not only the rooms that are turned down at One&Only The Palm; the entire hotel is treated the same way.
“When the hotel is turned down at 7-7.30 in the evening and all the candles are lit, there’s a beautiful place where you walk past the spa and you’ve got these beautiful fireballs and a fountain,” says Payne. “To be quite honest sitting on the terraces in the evening, you actually don’t feel as if you’re in Dubai,” he adds.
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