Establishing the name
There is certainly a base in the domestic market familiar with the Rocco Forte name, and Power is focused on increasing this by establishing relationships with the conventional travel trade as well as its usual luxury travel partners.
“I went to see some of them last year, Dnata and the like, and we signed up with quite a lot of the airline’s tour operators programmes, but we have a full-time Middle Eastern specialist who is based in Rome and he does the high net worth individuals and the royalty and the government business, but we will put a second person into the market during this year and they will do the tour operators and the travel agents,” says Power.
“I think there’s quite a lot of conference business from here that we don’t get. Rocco Forte Abu Dhabi will have quite big conference facilities and I think that hotel will help put us on the map in the conference sector,” he adds.
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This, coupled with the distinctive design and service, is intended to help Rocco Forte Abu Dhabi battle against the city’s aforementioned competition of 2700 luxury rooms, although long-term Power thinks the supply demand relationship will balance out.
“I think last year and even throughout the downturn, travel into Abu Dhabi consistently grew. There will be a difficult period, there’s no way around it, where you will have a steady growth in arrivals but then a steeper growth in rooms. It will be a more difficult time, but Abu Dhabi is establishing itself cleverly on the world stage.
“It’s focused on two or three iconic areas where it can aim to be the best in the world and it’s doing a really good job, particularly sport and the arts, it is becoming a centre for those areas. I think balance will come back; it may take a year or so in the meantime, we’ll see how things go, says Power, noting that while new hotels are opening, some older stock is likely to disappear.
Of course, Abu Dhabi is not the only Middle Eastern market Rocco Forte Hotels is entering; in 2013 it will open a hotel in Jeddah and in 2014, properties in Marrakech, Cairo and Luxor. The renovation of the iconic Shepheard hotel in Cairo and the Luxor hotel, in partnership with the Egyptian government, are mammoth tasks, but the results are expected to be “something really special” says Power.
And it’s unlikely the development of Rocco Forte Hotels will stop there. While there was enough critical mass to look further afield, Power says the group is “by no means finished in Europe”.
“We need to be in Paris, Moscow, Madrid, Barcelona, Milan,” says Power. “We have made the decision that we would like to have a hotel in New York, we did have a look at a few in the downturn but nothing that quite worked, it’s difficult for us because we’ve got to get something we can either afford to make fit the brand or that fits it already. We’d probably like to be in LA as well. Well see how that ones goes.”
There could still be more hotels for the Middle East too, with up to five locations on the wish-list.
“We’re looking at one in Beirut at the moment,” Power reveals. With exciting projects on the cards, we hope there will be future opportunities to discuss the brand with the affable Power. Until then, we’ll be keeping our eyes on the Forte-fication of Abu Dhabi.
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