Emaar Hospitality Group recently held a series of ‘X Factor’ style auditions as part of the recruitment process for new upscale brand, Vida Hotels and Resorts.
The group, which also operates The Address Hotels+Resorts five-star brand, designed the recruitment process to bring a “new feel” to the service of its younger-generation brand, Emaar Hospitality Group chief operating officer Josef Kufer told Hotelier.
“We have an existing team on board and we trained and groomed them, but we also wanted to bring a new feel in there as well,” said Kufer of the first Vida hotel, a conversion of the former Qamardeen Hotel in Downtown Dubai.
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“So we went on quite extensive recruitment trips oversees, tried to find who can we pick out of these people to become part of our team. We said we would do it like the’ X Factor’, so we want to see your character — can you sing, can you dance, can you draw, so everybody had to do something,” he explained.
“We went into Europe, people were like ‘what’s happening here, we have never had that experience’ but the GM and his team said ‘okay that’s how we work it, you sing for us, we want to see a personality coming through. Do you have a humour, do you understand things?’
“That was actually quite a nice exercise and we were able to form a team of characters which will bring quite a nice reflection to our hotel. They are real characters to welcome you,” Kufer asserted.
Vida Downtown Dubai will open on Sunday 16 June and be managed by GM Stefan Viard.
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