New Opening: Sofitel The Palm Resort

The newly-opened Sofitel The Palm Resort and Spa has a Polynesian twist, bringing island charm to Dubai’s shores

What strikes me first as I enter the lobby of Sofitel Dubai The Palm Resort and Spa are the vast open spaces, the discrete Tahitian-inspired carvings on the walls and the soothing sound of water from the eight water features in the lobby.

The 100,000m2 Polynesian-themed resort, which opened in July, seems unusually busy for a new launch in the summer months — on Hotelier’s visit, I spotted families checking in, guests milling around the concierge area and the coffee shop, and a packed poolside.

At the helm of the resort is general manager Christophe Schnyder, who has headed several pre-opening teams before joining Sofitel The Palm. The Polynesian theme, however, was quite new to the Swiss national, but he soon acquainted himself with the concept and worked with designers to create a resort that reflects a Polynesian theme without resorting to the typical island resort stereotype.

“I asked lots of questions about how far we can go in integrating the Polynesian culture into the hotel. Do we want to go all the way by having the traditional costumes or not? And we decided to leave it to the architecture and not go too much into the traditional dances and songs and music because it’s a little stereotypical, it’s out of its original site — we cannot recreate Polynesia here but we can give it the theme,” he says.

“So that’s why when you go around the hotel you see that uniforms are resort themed, with some small touches of the design etc., but we don’t have the full dance when people arrive and the garland around the neck. We didn’t want to be kitsch,” he states matter-of-factly.

The Polynesian theme is carried throughout the resort, with Tahitian motifs on walls with explanations of the various patterns, in the elevators, and the names of a handful of F&B outlets at the resort.

Sofitel the Palm includes a private beach and jetty, a kids club with its own restaurant, a 2500m2 So Spa, and rooms fitted out with the latest in room technology as well as Sofitel’s signature MyBed concept.

The most striking feature of the resort, however, is the 800m2 of lush vertical gardens in the corridors. Designed by French botanist Patrick Blanc, the green walls include more than 100 species of plants and bring a refreshing twist to a hotel interior yet to be seen in the emirate.

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Making a Mark
Having opened in July, which coincided with Ramadan, the resort relied heavily on its sales and marketing strategy to fill rooms.

“Adhering to the standards of the group and to ensure we have a cohesive marketing strategy in terms of positioning, in terms of familiarisation trips, in terms of media coverage geographically – we focused on that a lot. We also don’t undermine the marketing in Dubai itself in the UAE as well because we don’t want to be known as a fabulous destination for holidaymakers only,” says Schnyder.

The resort also turned to social media to drum up interest, including a contest in August, where participants created their ‘dream holiday package’, which was shared on platforms such as Facebook, and the entry with the most ‘likes’ won.

“Social media is very, very important,” declares Schnyder. “We have a full time person looking after the packages and online travel agencies etc. We’ve just crossed 15,000 fans on Facebook — it’s a fantastic number.

I was not expecting it honestly,” he admits, “And the way I saw it grow… I’m not a Facebook member myself, but I know from my boys that it’s very good.

But the number really grew exponentially; initially it was really slow and then quickly we reached 2000 members. So in three months it’s quite a big achievement.”

The efforts seem to have paid off, with the resort achieving 85% occupancy during Hotelier’s visit.

“We are fortunate to open in July, which is traditionally the lower business period in Dubai but we associated ourselves with travel partners who have the right clientele even for this kind of climate at this time of year. As the new kid on the block, we were amazed to see that right away there was a positive response from these markets,” says Schnyder.

Operating on the Palm has also brought its own set of challenges and opportunities for the new resort.

“It’s challenging because it’s not a natural environment, it’s not a natural beach. But the advantage is that it’s so widely publicised that as soon as you mention the Palm, people know it’s the Palm Jumeirah.”

With all the hotels on The Palm located on the crescent, the resort has to compete with existing properties such as Atlantis The Palm, Jumeirah Zabeel Saray, Rixos The Palm Dubai, and at least two new properties — Anantara Dubai the Palm, which opened in September and the Waldorf Astoria, which will open in 2014.

“You really need to position yourself differently and make sure that your services are really five-star services because we are all competing with five-star hotels on the Palm Jumeirah, which is not necessarily the case in the city where you have three-, four- and five-star hotels,” observes Schnyder.

However, he states that if hotels on The Palm are to compete with city hotels, they have to work together to promote the island as a luxury destination.

“Competition is good as long as we all have the same approach toward the destination, especially for the Palm, which has been so widely spoken about — before there was only the Atlantis, now you have five or six hotels. So it’s important to position and promote the Palm as a luxury destination in Dubai, which can offer similar service levels as the established hotels in the city,” he asserts.

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Kid-Friendly Concepts
F&B is a key area for differentiation among the Palm hoteliers and when it came to developing the outlets at the resort, executive chef Olivier Chaleil and director of food and beverage David Hirber fine-tuned various concepts planned by Sofitel.

“This is my second pre-opening now,” explains Hirber, “And whatever you see in blueprints and architectural directions during the construction period is completely different from what the outcome is — capacities, seats, perceptions that we had from the beginning, so now we are fine tuning the whole concept together.”

While developing the concepts, the team had to ensure it catered to children since the property is marketed as a holiday destination for families.

“We are a family resort so we are very kid friendly. Who are we not to allow kids in a restaurant? We used to in the past have children policies but then what’s the point of coming to a family resort if you can’t spend time with them in a restaurant? In my opinion that’s not the way forward in 2013 and that’s what I discussed with the management,” he says.

Every restaurant also has a special menu for children that reflects the theme and the concept of the outlet. “Of course, there are the standard dishes, but you also have at least three signature starters and a handful of signature main courses in every outlet that are specifically for our young clients,” says Hirber.

However, as five-star restaurants, the diners are bound to expect a level of exclusivity and sophistication — something the team tackled by having dedicated family areas in the restaurants.

“In every restaurant we allocate areas that are more suitable for children, which are closer to the bathrooms and closer to the entrances in case of emergencies, and on the other hand ensures that couples will have their own experience still in one room and as much as possible separate them from each other so that both parties have a quality time with us,” explains Hirber.

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Building a Team
Also in the planning for a long period was the team set up, with director of human resources Sayed Edroos leading the search to fill around 650 initial positions at the resort.

For his executive team, Schnyder set out some basic requirements for recruits: the team had to have multicultural or Middle Eastern experience in order to deal with the resort’s clientele as well as its staff, while prior experience of working on a pre-opening team was essential, as was working in large operations in the luxury segment.

“Our director of HR went on 14 or 15 recruitment trips,” explains Schnyder. “Even if you start one year in advance, start looking at CVs, start interviewing — we have a workforce now of 650 — on average we conducted three interviews per position so it’s a large number of interviews.”

A delay in opening (the resort was originally meant to open in December 2012) also posed a few challenges for the hotel, he admits and to avoid losing staff after recruitment, the management decided to postpone hiring a full team.

“If you bring everyone on board in January and we open only in April or May, we would lose some people because you can only do so much training. After a while they really don’t want to keep learning and they want to start doing the real job they were hired for,” he says.

Once recruitment was completed, the teams got down to training right away in order to prepare for the opening.

“Once the ambassadors arrived, we had the theoretical training about all the Sofitel standards, and then we started with role plays, followed by brainstorming sessions to comment on how the process works and could be improved,” explains director of rooms, Karim Shawky.

The F&B team also began training by familiarising themselves with the basics — something David Hirber stressed on.

Trainings were divided into three components: “All of our ambassadors have enjoyed thorough training on basics such as fruits, vegetables, fish, meat, water, juices, teas, coffee — so one component was the basic knowledge of F&B.

The second is the Sofitel service that needs to be followed. The third component is the outlet’s individual fine-tuning of the general standards and it remains one of our hardest and most difficult tasks to do,” he says.

“Some of the ambassadors have never had F&B exposure due to the culture, due to the background, due to the origin. So if I look at what they have achieved already and if we continue at the same pace over the next couple of months, we will get there,” he optimistically states.

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Green Initiatives
One vital position to recruit for early on was director of engineering, with Rohit Salunke being the man tasked with finding environmentally friendly irrigation solutions for 27,000m2 of landscaped area.

“The building has a recycling process in place, where even the AC condensation is recycled into the landscaping irrigation system so there is no wastage of real water. Based on the weather and the requirement, the irrigation system comes on — so it saves on water — it’s connected to a timer but based on the weather, when the ambient temperature goes high, the irrigation cycle will increase,” explains Salunke.

“To further energy consumption, the right approach is to first monitor the energy, see where your highest consumption is, and then use corrective measures for the lighting, and water features when you want it operational without affecting the guest experience. At the end of the day the guest experience counts more than the cost saving,” he asserts.

With the resort open, Salunke is now busy working on implementing Sofitel’s Planet 21 initiative at the property, and future plans include working towards achieving a Green Globe certification as well as various HACCP certifications.

Next on the agenda for Schnyder and his team is building on the resort’s current momentum. He seems confident that with a new marketing campaign that will launch soon, the brand will continue to garner interest. “Our operational priority is to streamline the processes – make them as seamless as possible and ensure consistency in as little time as possible.

At the end of the day if your systems work, if your processes work, that means you minimise the guest inconvenience, you minimise guest complaints and then you have positive word of mouth comments. So that’s really my priority,” he states.

“From a business perspective, to have a running hotel open for only three months and hitting high occupancy numbers is quite fabulous. Like during Eid, the hotel building already achieved 85% occupancy. So during the high season towards the end of the year, we expect some peaks where we will achieve 100% occupancy definitely,” he concludes.

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Restaurants at a glance
Sofitel the Palm features 15 food and beverage outlets including the restaurant in the kid’s club.

Hotelier’s favourites include:
Moana: The resort’s signature seafood restaurant with fresh and sustainable seafood options including sushi, oysters and grilled fish paired with accompanying curries from around the world.

Studio du Chef: Contemporary French cuisine prepared in a show kitchen with televisions showcasing chefs at work. The outlet will also have weekly wine and cheese nights and other specials.

Porterhouse: The signature steakhouse restaurant and bar, with a classic French influence. Guests can enjoy prime cuts of beef paired with pre-prohibition era cocktails. Porterhouse also includes a cigar lounge.

Manava: All day dining restaurant with a buffet of international cuisine. The restaurant engages guests in Tahitian inspired art with dedicated rooms for each artist’s work.

Hong Loong: At the resort’s Chinese restaurant, guests can try a selection of some of the spiciest Chinese dishes from the dedicated ‘Spicy’ menu, or allow the tea sommelier to pair a tea with their dish in a traditional and inspiring ceremonial approach.

Maui Beach Restaurant and Bar: Located by the pool and extending out onto the beach, Maui offers a refined twist on fresh salads, sandwiches, juices and snacks. A rooftop bar provides shisha and incredible views of the sunset.

Bottega: Located in the serviced residences, Bottega offers authentic Italian dishes such as fresh pasta, risotto, pizzas, cold cuts, daily specials from the deli counter and delicious Italian desserts.

The Library: Located on the first level, overlooking the resort’s lobby, The Library provides a relaxed and comfortable area for guests to unwind with a selection of books. The Library can also be booked for smaller private events.

Amura Kid’s Club & Restaurant: A kids-friendly restaurant located within the resort’s Kid’s Club where children can make friends, create fun projects using simple materials, learn how to juggle the Polynesian way, or play drums.

2Liv: The 10,000ft2 nightclub features an open terrace as well as a dance floor and a mezzanine level. Once opened, the club will welcome special guest DJs, live entertainment as well as local and international celebrities.

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F&B FOCUS:
French Canadian executive chef Olivier Chaleil plans to bring something new to Sofitel The Palm’s F&B concepts by offering a fresh take on tried and tested methods.

“We knew Porterhouse was going to be a steakhouse so it was about trying to make the steakhouse a bit more different and we did it with the materials we could find. We designed some special grills, the meat suppliers are usually the same for everyone but I tried to get some special cuts from France,” he says.

“Moana is a seafood restaurant but the idea is to make it seafood of the world — the best of what people would like to see. So we have fresh oysters as well as sushi and sashimi because everyone loves that.

We have grilled fish and all the best curries from around the world, which is what I like most about this restaurant because you can have monk fish with a curry from India or Sri Lanka or from Thailand, so you can have the same fish cooked with different sauces,” enthuses Chaleil.

“The French restaurant [Studio du Chef] is an upscale restaurant. A French restaurant is usually seen as a difficult restaurant to go to by many people because they find it very stuffy and the names on the menu are also difficult and most of the time the attitude of the service is also very repulsive. So we tried to reverse all of that and tried to make something happy, very fun,” he explains.

When asked about focusing on food promotions and seasonal specialities, Chaleil is quite indignant about the lack of innovation. “It has been done, redone and abused and re-abused. For example truffle promotions, aren’t you bored by a truffle promotion?” he quips. “So I think it’s time to find something different.”

Stat Attack
-543 Rooms and apartments
- 2500m2 The size of the resort’s So Spa
- 650 Employees at Sofitel The Palm
- 170 Species of plants
- 800 m2 Length of the indoor green walls
- 32 Water features
- 14 Restaurants and bars
- 15,000 Facebook fans