Event Preview: Great GM Debate 2014

As hotel general managers across the UAE look forward to the fifth annual Hotelier Middle East Great GM Debate, being held on September 2 at Jumeirah Beach Hotel in Dubai, Hotelier Middle East is delighted to welcome back His Excellency Helal Almarri, director-general, Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM) to the stellar speaker line-up. Almarri will take part in a live-on-stage Q&A with senior group editor of hospitality, Louise Oakley, and provide an exclusive insight for Debate delegates to the plethora of initiatives currently being spearheaded by the tourism body.

Almarri said: “The Hotelier Middle East Great GM Debate is an ideal platform for hoteliers and the wider industry to come together and discuss developments and changes within the sector. DTCM’s involvement in this debate is key as the team continually strives to work closely with industry stakeholders to leverage our mutual efforts.

“Since the last conference, there have been several major announcements and landmarks which will contribute to the growth of the industry — Dubai won the Expo 2020 bid; the first phase of Al Maktoum International at Dubai World Central opened; a number of incentives and initiatives to speed up the development of hotels within Dubai have been announced; DTCM has introduced a new hotel classification system; and there have been continual enhancements to the destination offering.

“The growth in hotel establishment guest figures that we’ve seen over the last 18 months is encouraging and together we are on the right track to meet our Tourism Vision for 2020 targets and make Dubai the most visited city in the world,” His Excellency added.

Delving further into the topics addressed by Almarri will be a panel session entitled Healthy Competition, which will see senior corporate hoteliers and GMs discuss the impact of Dubai’s evolving hospitality mix.

Other panel discussions will focus on the pressing issues of measuring hotel performance, the use of social media in hospitality, and the evolution of the general manager’s role itself.

Speaking at a meeting of the GM Debate advisory panel, Sami Nasser, SVP, operations, Middle East, Africa and India, FRHI Hotels and Resorts, said that “there is a real issue on which kind of figure we are talking about” when measuring benchmarks and using third-party reporting companies.

Burj Al Arab GM Heinrich Morio explained: “It is important to know how exactly the hotels in one’s comp set are calculating their RGI performance. A close relationship with your comp set is essential to obtain clarity on the method of calculation. In areas where discrepancies with the STR guidelines exist, they need to be addressed and rectified, if that is not possible then you should change your comp set”.

These points will be debated in the opening Beating Benchmarks session, then after lunch, the GMs will address the highly publicised issue of social media, specifically with regard to its impact on reputation.

As Serge Zaalof, managing director and president, Atlantis, The Palm, said during the advisory panel: “Reputation management will be really important for the hotel industry in upcoming years. Considering there are millions of reviews written each day across a plethora of different platforms, the world wide web has the power of influencing one’s decision making process; being able to manage your businesses reputation will determine success or failure.

ocial media and mobile already live in symbiosis and we will only continue to see them merge over the course of this year. Mobile activity has allowed social media to live in real time by allowing users to create updates, tag friends and check in on their mobile devices.”

“Keeping an eye out for authentic ways to make use of emerging social and mobile applications will be of great value for hotels,” he added.

As well as tackling key industry themes and issues, the GM Debate also offers GMs a choice of more practical, specialist workshops led by industry experts. Dubai-based Sweetbeam will be running a session entitled Discovering the Hidden Revenue & Profit Potential of In-House Guests, while for GMs interested in developing their restaurants’ potential, don’t miss the workshop on F&B Innovation from Robert Ancill, chief executive officer of The Next Idea.

More than 200 general managers are expected to attend and interact in the Hotelier Middle East Great GM Debate.

Make sure to follow all the news as it happens with our hourly updates on hoteliermiddleeast.com as well as @HotelierME on Twitter, and download the Hotelier Middle East app to get the full rundown of the event in the October issue of the magazine.

The Agenda at a glance

08.00 Registration & morning coffee

09.00 Welcome from Hotelier Middle East

09.10 Setting the Scene — The UAE Outlook
Christopher Hewett, senior consultant, TRI Hospitality Consulting

09.30 OPENING PANEL DISCUSSION: Beating Benchmarks

Owners are becoming increasingly engaged with the performance results of hotels, placing renewed importance on KPIs and financial benchmarks. However, the challenge with benchmarking and obtaining hotel performance data is the discrepancy of data which is used. There is a lack of consistency in the room revenue reported to third party firms, one of the reasons being the service charge. This session will discuss a common standard of how hotels and resorts report their numbers to create a correct benchmark for the industry, as well as assess the value and implementation of quality audits and guest satisfaction reports.

Moderator: Christopher Hewett, senior consultant, TRI Hospitality Consulting
Panel: Philip Wooler, area director Middle East & Africa, STR Global
Peter O’Connor, general manager, Habtoor Grand Beach Resort & Spa
Marc Descrozaille, regional director — UAE, Egypt, Jordan & Oman, The Rezidor Hotel Group
Laurent A. Voivenel, chief executive officer, HMH Hotel Group

10.15 TAKE 5...

Margaret Paul, general manager, Madinat Jumeirah

10.20 Morning break

10.55 TAKE 5...

Stewart Selbie, area manager Starwood Hotels Abu Dhabi, general manager, The St. Regis Saadiyat Island at Starwood Hotels and Resorts

11.00 DTCM Q&A Session: Live on stage with His Excellency Helal Saeed Almarri, director general, Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing

11.20 PANEL DISCUSSION 2: Healthy Competition?

The decree under the Tourism Vision 2020 to broaden the range of accommodation options for visitors to Dubai has already increased the numbers of three- and four-star hotels in the pipeline. At the same time, new luxury brands are continuing to enter the emirate, challenging existing luxury leaders to up their game. How can the Dubai destination adapt to this new segmentation, and how can luxury hotels raise their standards to separate them from the rest?

Panel: Michael Martin, general manager & regional general manager, InterContinental Dubai Marina & Intercontinental Hotel Group
Klaus Assmann, general manager, Sofitel Downtown
Mark Willis, area vice president for Middle East & Sub-Saharan Africa, The Rezidor Hotel Group
David Thompson, chief operating officer, JA Resorts & Hotels
Carlos Khneisser, vice president — development, Hilton Worldwide Middle East

12.05 TAKE 5...

Michael Martin, general manager & regional general manager, InterContinental Dubai Marina & Intercontinental Hotel Group

12.10 WORKSHOPS (Choose from A, B, or C):

A) The bottom line opportunities lying in waste management — Farnek
B) Discovering the Hidden Revenue & Profit Potential of In-House Guests — SweetBeam
C) F&B Innovation — Robert Ancill, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, The Next Idea

12.55 Lunch

14.00 PANEL DISCUSSION 3: Social Media in Hospitality — The GM’s Responsibility to Reputation

Today’s era of the “connected customer” — the vast world of online reviews combined with growing social media use — provides unlimited information about others’ experiences at the touch of a button. For the increasingly competitive hospitality industry, an unsatisfied customer can quickly transform into a whirlwind of negative reviews, which can lead to a poor online reputation and dwindling occupancy levels. However, social media can present a golden opportunity for hoteliers to connect with its customers, with an ultimate goal of developing a partnership for brand growth and development. How then, do hoteliers make social media work for their hotel?
Moderator: Robert Ancill, chief executive officer, The Next Idea
Panel: Konstantin Zeuke, general manager, Kempinski Hotel Mall of the Emirates
Marko Janssen, general manager, Melia Dubai
Stephen Gee, director of operations, Zaya Retreats

14.45 Afternoon break

15.10 PANEL DISCUSSION 4: The Evolution of the GM
Possessing one of the most visible and integral roles in a hotel, a GM requires personality, efficiency, organisation and leadership. Many say finding the whole package is as challenging as ever. To encourage employees to seek out this management role, companies are recruiting and training from within to create GMs that privilege loyalty and hard work as much as they do the bottom line. For this reason, are we seeing a shift in the role of the GM and how they lead their teams? How will the role evolve in future years?

Panel: Simon Casson, regional vice president & general manager, Four Seasons Resort Dubai at Jumeirah Beach
Margaret Paul, general manager, Madinat Jumeirah
Laurent Chaudet, general manager, Pullman Dubai Deira City Centre
Jan Moenkedieck, general manager, Waldorf Astoria Dubai Palm Jumeirah

16.00 Close of 2014 GM Debate