Quality Control
“In some cases we have a very good, close and tight relationship with an owner which means full control of the brand and what we do. In other cases owners aren’t responsive and don’t like to participate in the programmes we do, such as training and development.
One owner mentioned to his manager ‘why should I send you for training’? Another said ‘why should I pay for training, let the brand pay’ and obviously this is not the case so owners and operators have to work together.”
Moukarzel says the group has reclaimed management of around six formerly franchised properties over the last few years due to the owners’ poor operating standards reflecting badly on the Golden Tulip brand.
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“We have seen hotels departing in various countries that were not up to par whether in Jordan, Lebanon or Saudi Arabia — so we have seen where we had critical mass, where we can have hotels departing without hindering the owners, without hindering the brand or the overall set-up and relationship for that matter.”
A major part of Golden Tulip’s MENA expansion has been through franchise agreements in Saudi Arabia. Today, the group has 17 franchised hotels comprising 2002 rooms in the Kingdom and one managed 150-key property.
“We have the largest network of hotels in Saudi Arabia and the next generation is to have more managed properties. In the next two-to-three years we should be adding at least 10 hotels on the management side, so this brings the number of hotels – franchised and managed – to par, yet the number of rooms across the managed properties will be double the franchised,” says Moukarzel.
There are 16 managed properties comprising 2193 rooms and two franchised properties comprising just 243 rooms in the pipeline for Saudi Arabia, all due to open by 2016.
Furthermore, Golden Tulip MENA director of operations Paul Diab expects that as the number of managed hotels increases in the region, more existing Golden Tulip franchisees will opt to hand operations over to the group having witnessed the success of these managed properties.
“We hope the franchisees will see these hotels performing better due to the management decisions and style. Revenue is impacted because in the managed hotels we’ll be able to have more hands-on [involvement with] decision making, in franchised we do not.
There will be more monthly reporting and controls, making sure standards are followed properly,” says Diab.
Moukarzel asserts: “If the owner wishes to change from franchise to management we will take it over”.
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