More than 150 general managers and hotel department heads will gather at Grand Hyatt Doha this morning (April 15) for the annual Hotelier Middle East Qatar Hospitality Summit.
The event, which comprises a series of panel discussions and workshops led by close to 20 of Qatar’s top hoteliers, is set to address a range of industry issues, from delivering world-class customer service and attracting new markets through to driving revenue through F&B and acquiring talent in a new market.
An opening address from Chris Hewett, senior consultant, TRI Hospitality Consulting, will examine the hotel pipeline and current performance, looking at the raw numbers that will shape Qatar’s hospitality sector through to 2015.
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This will be followed by a keynote panel discussion entitled Positioning Your Hotel For the Future, moderated by Hewett and featuring Christoph Franzen, GM, Grand Hyatt Doha, Ray McShane, GM, Mondrian Doha, Safak Guvenc, GM, W Hotel Doha and Hosssein Vetry, cluster GM, The Ritz-Carlton Hotels – Qatar.
The hoteliers will discuss how hotels can be position themselves to maximize performance over the next five years, debating how established hotels will keep up, and how will new hotels make their mark.
Speaking to Hotelier ahead of the event, Hewett outlined the growth of the market, anticipating a 50% increase in inventory within the next three years alone. This is expected to ramp up further post 2017, as the country gears up to host the much-talked-about World Cup 2022.
“The supply pipeline for Doha is substantial with over 7,000 rooms anticipated to enter the market by 2017, representing a 50% increase in the current supply of approximately 13,500 rooms. This will cause some potential challenges especially if overall demand does not maintain the same pace of growth as supply, forcing down market wide occupancy levels and potentially average rates,” said Hewett.
Of how to manage the supply, he advised: “Generally existing hotels are in a strong position during these situations as they have established cliental base and sales and marketing channels which helps maintain consistent demand, however, this can still be eroded by new hotels adopting aggressive price penetration strategies. Therefore, hoteliers will need to ensure they are always developing new and innovative service offerings and products which create a point of difference in the market”
Grand Hyatt’s Franzen said new and increased competition had the benefit of “increasing the service benchmark”.
“We already have the advantage of name recognition in the market, we already have a good base of guests who use us; these are all things the competition that opens will have to work on,” he said.
In response to being asked whether the pipeline was daunting, he added: “I worked in Dubai 15 years ago for the first time; at the time we had a handful of five-star hotels and everyone asked the same question you are asking now about Doha. If we are able to make Doha into a destination where leisure and business mix, along with conferences and attractive connections to Europe and Asia I see no reason why the city should not succeed”.