Doha hotels may be maintaining a brave front in the face of growing competition, but the revenue managers reveal what a pickle they’re really in as room rates slide
Away from the glamour of Doha’s burgeoning hotel scene, around 30 gloomy-looking revenue managers are gathered in crisis talks.
The year 2012 hasn’t been fun for these frugal-minded managers who — by the year end — will have seen the city’s rooms supply increase a record 20% on 2011’s 10,000 rooms.
With every new hotel launch, their number one goal of improving market share and boosting the bottom line slips further away.
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Occupancy levels — and thus rates — are slumping before their eyes, and the general feeling is one of “fear”, according to workshop leader Anita Markiewicz, vice president revenue management — Middle East and Asia for Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts, speaking at the Hotelier Middle East Qatar GM Debate.
“We’re all scared of what’s going to happen as more hotels come online in Qatar,” Markiewicz admits.
“The first thing the general manager says when they present the budget is ‘how will the increasing number of hotels affect us’? They’re thinking about the forecasting and pricing, and we’re thinking ‘how low can we go’?”
“Every year the senior management team gathers to create the annual business plan and budgets.
“But we all know the truth of what happens with the budgeting. The owner doesn’t like it, there are nine versions and we all say we’re going to stick to it, but we don’t,” says Markiewicz; her audience nodding along.
“We know we’re working in a difficult world. When the forecast isn’t coming in or the bookings are behind, panic can set in,” she says.
“This is where we have to have a strategy and stick to it. We can hide, cut costs, staff and quality. You can be scared and have undercutting tactics to break even. Or you can go into protection mode. You change or die.”
Markiewicz says the first step to survival is accepting planned performance factors are going to change.
The next step is to deal with underperformance, without resorting to “dirty tactics”.
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