A tough market
But with hotel businesses in Abu Dhabi struggling when it comes to occupancies and RevPAR, and the market already saturated with rooms, Kaddouri makes no bones about the fact that this is an extremely testing time to open the property – not to mention that Rotana is currently building two further hotels at Capital Centre to open in 2013 and 2014.
But as he says, Rotana is “building for the future”. “It’s important we understand Abu Dhabi is a destination in process, and this will take some time. In terms of how is it looking over the next few years, it’s going to be very tough.
Any hotelier would tell you times in Abu Dhabi are extremely challenging and competitive and we understand that. Business is coming in but it’s not coming in regularly enough at the volume that we need.
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“I’d say times in Abu Dhabi are going to be tough for the next two, three, maybe even four years by the time the market settles,” he continues. “But hopefully then we’ll start to see some improvements in terms of business. The future is bright but the next few years will be tough for all hotels and the strongest will survive.
Owners and investors are confident that building today will yield very good results for them.”
On a positive note, Kaddouri says the opening of Centro Capital Centre has been “one of the most successful ever” for Rotana — in its first two months the hotel averaged occupancies of 70%.
In his first general manager posting Dominique Richard-Herbert explains that his strategy has been to “go in aggressively”; with the “unbeatable” launch price of AED 225; plus a great deal of hard graft in the six-month lead-up to opening.
Consequently Centro opened to a large group booking from the Abu Dhabi Science Festival; as well as a number of group bookings over the Formula 1 period.
With its location right on the doorstep of the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC) the biggest chunk of business will of course be off the back of events at the venue – when I visited it was packed with delegates attending the ADIPEC exhibition.
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