HOTEL UPDATE: Six Senses Zighy Bay

The management duo of John Philipson and Godfrey Vas at Six Senses Zighy Bay tell Louise Oakley their plans to increase occupancy and length of stay at the resort through several refreshments to the F&B offering and new leisure developments

Since launching in 2008, Hotelier favourite Six Senses Zighy Bay has been set apart from competition in Oman and the neighbouring UAE by both its remote Musandam location and its barefoot luxury Six Senses appeal.

However, like all hotels, the first three to four years in operation can be a testing time, resulting in tweaks, additions and improvements as business stabilises and management sets about plotting future growth.

This is perhaps even more pressing at a resort like Zighy Bay, where its idyllic, private location has its pros and cons; yes, guests will stay on property as there is simply nowhere else to go to dine or spa, but for repeat visitors, is there enough to keep them interested and entertained on their second, third or fourth trip to the hotel?

And for a property largely reliant on GCC weekend custom during the long, hot summers, what can it do to increase these short stays and keep guests around for longer?

At Zighy Bay, Six Senses managing director — Oman John Philipson has joined forces with general manager Godfrey Vas, responsible for day to day operation and all-important guest contact, to drive new ideas, events and marketing projects.

“The main purpose [of the new projects] from a very selfish point of view is to lengthen the guest stay; at the moment we’re getting three or four days from the local GCC market and up to seven from the European / American market,” says Philipson.

These changes are most evident in the food and beverage offering, which is being refreshed to offer guests more choice.

A new restaurant, Summer House, has replaced the Chill Bar as a “global bistro brasserie”; Dining on the Sand has been renamed Spice Market, which will have an extended Arabic kitchen; and fine dining restaurant Sense on the Edge — located on a plateau in the mountains surrounding the resort — will feature new design elements and an à la carte menu in the future.

Philipson explains: “The demand for outdoor seating [at Sense on the Edge] has become so great we want to try and make more of it available for people to enjoy the view. Sense on the Edge will be softened; we’re going to try and feature-light the mountain around the restaurant, at the moment when the sun sets you have the view of Zighy Bay but the rock features are actually quite stunning as well.

“The bar is actually carved into the mountain itself, we want to feature that and the mountain around it. We’ll change the furniture outside to be a little daintier and also have a seating area just for drinks”.

Keeping its authentic focus, Zighy Bay has also introduced the Shua Shack on its beach, where lamb is cooked traditional Omani style in a pit oven in the sand and guests sit family-style on low seating, and it will offer more Arabic cooking classes and an enlarged chef’s table at Spice Market too.

“Along with the Spice Market, Sense on the Edge, Summer House, Shua Shack, you’ve also got beach bbqs, international buffet nights, in-villa bbqs, destination dining,” says Philipson. “Someone could stay for nine nights and not have the same dinner experience repeated.”

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More activities
Beyond the extension to the F&B, Six Senses is also increasing its focus on families, children and teens.

“I think Zighy had a reputation as being a very much honeymoon destination and I think over a period of time we’ve sort of gravitated towards families,” observes Philipson.

“We want to try and do something a little bit more dynamic with kids and teens, and hoteliers on the whole aren’t known for being great teen/kids activity arrangers, so we’ve got a company called Absolute Adventure on board. They’ll have a team of people based at the resort with their own 4x4s, mountain bikes, canoes, and they will run the kids club and teens club and take them on excursions.”

Activities will include archery, abseiling the wine tower, rock climbing, survival skills and slack lining, while there are also plans for children to have the option to stay in a desert camp area within the resort during busy holiday periods.

“It’s like luxury boy scouts or luxury brownies,” says Philipson.

And it’s not just the youngsters that have more to do. The Six Senses Spa programme is also being expanded: “We have a fairly large spa facility at Zighy Bay. We’re gravitating ourselves towards more of a wellness spa.

We will launch five packages that are three-day, five-day and seven-day in length, ranging from detox to fitness to wellness to spa treatments,” says Philipson.

“They include a variety of daily activities from meditation to yoga to pilates to aqua aerobics. We have a jungle gym in the resort so there will be outdoor exercise, mountain climbing, mountain biking if it’s a fitness- related package; wellness will be sessions with the naturopath, a raw-food diet programme and a purity blend of minerals and juices. They’ll be packaged up and we’ll sell that directly and through our tour operator partners,” he says.

“And we’re creating it in such a way that you’re not bound to these packages. So for a guest that has come on a regular leisure trip, they can avail of part of the treatments,” adds Vas.

“We’ve talked about adding things like iridology, blood tests, colonics,” says Philipson, explaining that the wellness focus is being prioritised at Zighy Bay and Six Senses Yai Noi in Thailand, following the closure of the Six Senses Sanctuary destination spa.

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“We’re trying to make sure we maintain the balance of a fun family romantic resort with a wellness element linked to the spa and food and beverage,” says Philipson.

More space will be made for Zighy Bay’s visiting practitioners by moving the gym out of the spa building and into a new area next door, while retreats run by the visiting experts aim to bring in new guests.

“We are looking at organising a yoga retreat in March of this year, and these are people who have their own client bases already, as well as some of our own and are basically promoting a five-day yoga or pilates retreat. And we will try and get some visiting chefs to come over as well,” explains Philipson.

The souk at the entrance to Zighy Bay has also finally been fully opened and includes The Gallery retail area and the LIFE activities department, while the Organic Garden will offer daily luncheons and enable guests to select their own herbs to match the local catch of the day.

The people factor
It is not only the hotel hardware that needs refreshing after the first three years; it’s also the software.

Zighy Bay’s location makes recruitment tough, with staff normally looking at two- or four-year placements, meaning many have moved on since the opening.

“Recruitment and turnover is the biggest challenge and we’re trying to encourage as many Omanis as possible to come across, because it’s part of our philosophy that normally the first priority is [to have] locals working [at the resort],” says Vas. “Obviously, one issue is that we are far away from mainland Oman but we are still not giving up, we are trying to join hands with the National Hospitality Institute of Oman and recruiting some candidates from there.”

Currently, about 25% of the 350 staff is Omani — a lower percentage that in previous years — but Vas says the team is doing its best to motivate them.

“We do a five-day week and everyone gets two days off, but for Omanis they do 15 days straight and get six days off, even though it upsets the schedule and the operation, but we encourage that because they can go home and spend longer time with their families. We have a resident English teacher to develop their English skills and encourage them to go for driving lessons,” says Vas.

He says recruitment is difficult “across the board really, food and beverage can be the hardest”.

“The setting is great for guests but for staff it’s hard. On the good side they have great accommodation, their own host area, gym, restaurant, tuck shop, daily transportation to Dubai and back any day,” Vas adds.

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Better and busier
The ultimate aim of the new initiatives, Philipson says simply, is a busier Zighy Bay: “The success of Six Senses resorts like Soneva Fushi, Soneva Gili is invention.

The reason that our existing hotels do so well is every year something new is added, some new element that keeps the regular guests coming back and also entertained with new experiences, so it will be a general evolution of the resort as opposed to building something and saying ‘that’s got to do you for the next 10 years’.”

Business to date hasn’t been “too bad”, he says: “We’re averaging around 40% with an average rate at US $850 and now we have to try and maintain that rate and get the occupancy up to 60%. We try to do a lot of packages, twin with Muscat or Dubai and Zighy,” says Philipson.

“We understand that Dubai has amazing attractions and we’ve already talked with the Armani hotel to do a twin centre because visually they’re so different, we’ll package them up so two nights in Armani, two nights in Zighy Bay; we’re talking to a couple of other hotels.”

In terms of other developments in the region, Philipson says that Six Senses is “looking for a couple of other opportunities”.

“There’s still a few MoUs in place but basically everything has gone very quiet because of the crisis, not because we don’t want to but the owners are nervous about the property markets,” he explains.

Meanwhile, the Tented Camp project at Zighy Bay, launched by Six Senses, Horizons Nouveaux and Al Marsa Musandam back in 2010, is being “reconceptualised”.

“We’re not doing them in the traditional format at the moment, we’re trying to create them into a standalone brand,” says Philipson.

“We were looking at it, the original mock up that we did looked a little bit makeshift, we took some feedback from clients and if they are paying $800-$1000 a night they want something a little bit classier. It’s being reconceptualised and will be launched and rebranded by Six Senses. It’s still on the cards but in a different format.”

For now though, he is focused on developing the Zighy Bay resort and the destination itself. “We’re trying hard to promote Oman, to join the dots in a three-hour radius,” says Philipson. “It’s an evolution.”