MEMOIRS OF A UAE HOTELIER: David Thomson

David Thomson left his marketing career behind to join the hotel industry in 1981 at the Hilton next to Dubai World Trade Centre, sadly since demolished. He then returned to marketing before being tempted back into the industry again in 2001 at Jebel Ali Hotel, which incidentally had been one his first clients when it opened back in 1981. Since then he hasn’t looked back and the company is now celebrating its own milestone, its 30th birthday. Here, Thomson recalls the most exciting developments over the years…

I was working with an agency handling Unilever in Bahrain, which then set up in Dubai – we pitched for the Hilton account and didn’t get it, but they offered me the job to join them. I went from being regional marketing director to regional sales and marketing director — that was a really interesting time.

There really wasn’t a tourist trade in those days. We had a few fam trips brought out by airtours. It was the German market, the UK market really hadn’t started at all. At the time there was Chicago Beach Hotel and Jebel Ali Hotel, we had the Hilton Beach Club, so people stayed at the Hilton and then went to the beach. We had a good corporate market, Hilton still has the Fujairah Hilton and Abu Dhabi and Al Ain, so we had four properties which I looked after, the Abu Dhabi Hilton probably did better on the leisure market than Dubai.

When I left Hilton, Gerhard Hardick was the vice president of Hilton in this region [now with Roya International], he then moved to look after Jebel Ali Group. I’d done marketing consultancy for InterContinental, Ritz-Carlton, KLM, Emirates, and then he asked if I wanted to go back into the hotel industry. I said not a chance and three months later there I was – 10 years ago on September 13.

September 9/11 had happened two days before, our occupancy had dropped to about 16%. That was the amazing thing about Dubai, immediately DTCM set up a committee of which I was a member and we set up this task force to drive business back to Dubai and by February the next year we were literally on stop sales just turning business away from Dubai. It was Dubai Incorporated - in those days all the beach properties worked in tandem, Dubai first and ourselves second. It was an incredible period, obviously that’s changed a lot wIth the arrival of all the hotels but 2001-2006 Dubai really was one single unit and had a fantastic response from the international market.

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The growth of the industry has been phenomenal. We do punch above our weight and it has been incredible to see all these major chains coming to Dubai in such a huge way. It’s been very exciting for us to see that happening and also to keep pace with business, I think we’re very proud of what we’ve achieved over that time.

It’s such a huge offering here, you name it you can find it, from a price point of view, from a quality point of view and things to do. There’s still a lot that can be done to develop tourism in terms of the pools, the mountains, and of course the various, natural beauty that is untouched. It’s stunning and I think if that was better organised, which it will be, I think we can do a lot on that front as well, as well as build the attractions and the waterparks etc.

I think in the next 10 years we’re still going to see a lot more development going on. The UAE has something like 30,000 rooms under construction which is a huge number. when you look at arrival figures now, we’ll get close to 10 million visitors in Dubai in hotels and serviced apartments. That’s a tremendous achievement and I think that’s just going to grow; I think a lot of the projects that have been on hold for the past couple of years are going to resurface and that’s going to be to the benefit of everybody.