Rotana’s corporate vice president of IT, Samir Abi Frem, talks Hotelier Middle East through the challenges he faces and solutions he has installed, including the recent completion of Entiretec’s centralised system
How is Rotana’s IT department boosting revenues?
At a property level, we find that a big portion of the revenue generated out of IT comes from high speed internet. Increasingly.
we are giving free high speed internet packages to corporate accounts and certain groups, but still the revenues we generate are considerably high. That’s why we find that instead of letting this go for free competely, we take the opportunity to keep the revenue coming, and invest in order to enhance the guest experience using this service.
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On top of that, with Entiretec, we can build a centralised high speed internet solution which will give us a competitive edge on the way people will use this service in the future. We can now create corporate accounts that have free internet globally. This is not common and not easy to be deployed.
What are your main challenges, and how do you deal with them?
Technology’s life cycle is getter shorter, so by the time you present an idea to the board, convince them, get round to doing it, it’s all already out there. We try to be dynamic in any idea we deploy and try to close it fast to get the value out of it.
Also, if you have good people, you cannot keep them for a long time. If you have a career in IT in hotels, it is considered a short-term career. If you are successful in hotels, you will reach a stage where you can’t always move up to the next level and get stuck in a director position. Every year or two good people leave, we get more people, and it goes on like that.
How do you ensure your security system is first-class?
Today, if you want to ensure high class security, you just can’t afford it as a hotel business. If someone says they can, then they are definitely missing something. If you want to provide it at a hotel level outside and inside, it will cost a fortune.
If I want to deploy a data loss prevention solution, for a hotel the size of Al Murooj Rotana [247 rooms and suites], I will pay AED 150,000 (US $40,836) a year. Sorry but this is very high for what we do.
With our centralised system from Entiretec, we can afford better security, as whatever system we put in place, it can be used by all 40 properties, so good security systems are more affordable.
How are you incorporating mobile devices into the guest experience?
Over the past two years we have tripled the coverage and signal strength we used to have to meet the demand of the extra mobile devices being connected.
We want staff to benefit from the new devices on the market, and also ensure they are secure and make sure the applications can be delivered on these devices, and that’s where we’re looking now — mobile integration within the property, looking at how PMSs can be used on smartphones and tablets, to service guests better.
What is your approach to training?
In terms of system training, we rely on the provider for basic training, but we also always have our own internal training that’s linked to it. Today we don’t have proper e-learning solutions in place — this is one of the things we are looking at, as well as training via video conferencing.
But we do use our intranet to allow internal training to be available. We’re not investing a lot in terms of technology, but for staff training in the traditional way — presentations and documents, we always keep it up to date.
My Best & Worst
- My best piece of advice is to try and always be kind to people.
- My best career move was definitely when I decided to join Rotana Hotels.
- My best meal is crispy Tempura Maki.
- My best hotel stay was at InterContinental Bali Resort in Jimbaran Bay.
- My worst hotel stay was at Grand Holiday Villa Hotel in Khartoum, Sudan.
- My worst mistake is that I probably don’t take enough time to relax.
- My biggest IT nightmare is making (or not making!) backups!
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