But what challenges did this pose for you operationally?
Fares: To keep the property running when you have construction is a challenge, you have to care for the safety and security of your staff, of your clients and of your guests, as well as making profit so you won’t go into debts even though you are under construction. And you work along with the contractors and all of the sub contractors too.
It was really a challenging project — for example, one day the reception was on this side and the next day the reception was on the other, we used a guest room as a reception during the entire project, another room we used as an exit to the health club facilities, and so on. Without good team work it would have been impossible to get it all done.
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Rowell: We exceeded the time but we didn’t exceed the budget. It took longer and it was more difficult than the very ambitious 15 months we had targeted but we were able to keep the hotel with plenty of rooms operating throughout the time.
So while we extended we were able to keep enough rooms open that we were breaking even or even making a small profit. [The challenges were] about balancing guest demands with the demands of the development work. There was nothing that needed to be remodelled. It worked reasonably well. It was a tough project but we’re happy with the outcome.
Now the property has its new-look, what will be your approach to driving rates and occupancy?
Fares: We’re in line with the market for a four-star property, in the AED 500s. During the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix we did very well.
We are regaining all of our corporate clients because during construction some of them moved out. But we never lost touch with them, we kept visiting them, making sales calls at least weekly, we invited them to different areas, sometimes took them to a different hotel because we didn’t have facilities to serve clients here. We stayed proactive on that part of it. They don’t believe this is really the property they were staying in before!
I’m not worried at all in keeping this property running and getting profit out of it. We did it in the tough days and when the property was really deteriorated; it wasn’t that great in terms of standing, now it’s brand new with a lot of facilities. It’s a product that can compete with other properties, whereas earlier it was challenging for me to compete with other properties.
We can talk with more confidence now and we can convince clients looking for MICE business that we are the place for them. ADTA has done well on promoting Abu Dhabi as a MICE sector; earlier we had 3-5% of business in MICE, now we’re expecting to have 10%.
You don’t have the benefit of an international distribution system, so how will you compete with big name brands?
Fares: We have recruited special sales staff for that who are working into the market and are attending local and international exhibitions, such as WTM, GIBTM and ATM.
We are targeting all online booking engines, dealing with bookings.com, Expedia, and we are in negotiations with Preferred Hotels of the World. I’m proactive when it comes to technology and I like to have the latest technology in here, so we recruited reservation staff who have experience in online booking engines. Were trying to get into the GDS systems and so on and so forth.
So far almost 5% of our business has come through our own website, which we only launched at the beginning of October.
This property is open for all types of clients and guests. We cater for all segments, it doesn’t exist in our dictionary to say no to any business.
What and where is your competition?
Fares: The Yas Island hotels are competing because they are dropping their rates tremendously. There are furnished hotel apartments coming up and that’s also a challenge because looking at the business around us it’s long-term, when you have a guest that stays with you for a minimum stay of 10 nights, many look for cooking facilities; that’s a challenge there for us.
Rowell: It’s those other segments that we’re not catering for trying to compete with our segment, possibly a serviced apartment coming in to the area and competing for the long staying guest or it’s the five stars trying to compete on rate, which hurts them in the long run, just to take those clients. Generally it’s the closer hotels to us but it’s a pretty captive market as there’s a limited number around us.
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