With the opening of a new hotel in the downtown area, Taj Hotels is looking to make its mark on Dubai and establish a foundation for growth across the city and the wider region
More than a decade after it first landed in Dubai, with the conversion of a Deira hotel into the Taj Palace, India’s Taj Hotels has finally put a real stamp on the emirate, with a brand new property in the city’s downtown area: Taj Dubai.
With its grand opening in April, the hotel has been a long time in the making, and responsible for delivering the operator’s vision is Jason Harding, doubling up his role as general manager of the property as well as that of area director.
“When you walk around and talk to colleagues, you really understand what Taj stands for. When the guys first reached out, I didn’t really know too much about Taj,” explains Harding. “The more I started to understand what Taj stood for, what they were looking to do in the region, it started to make it more appealing.
“This is one of a number we want to do in the UAE, so to be on board from the start was immensely appealing.”
Ahead of the opening of the property, management was expecting 30% of business to come from leisure guests, with the remaining 70% from corporate accounts, groups and events. In terms of nationalities, 25% of guests are expected to come from the GCC, another 20% from the brand’s India heartland, and around 15% from Europe, mainly out of the UK and Germany.
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“We think the leisure market will be driven because of the destination and the corporate market because of the locality to the corporate accounts we’ll be working with,” says Harding.
The hotel is going to market with an opening rate of AED 900++ (US $245) as an introductory offer, although it will eventually settle into its standard rate of AED 1200++ (US $327).
Harding is pragmatic about the significant competition his property is surrounded by. Sheikh Zayed Road has a plethora of established hotels; Emaar has been making its mark on Downtown Dubai; and Business Bay, with new hotels cropping up rapidly, provides a formidable comp set group.
“From our perspective, yes we’ll compete on a product level but where we really see the main difference where Taj can add is on the service element,” he insists. “This is a hotel company that’s been established for over 100 years from very solid roots.
“That’s what we want to bring. If we compete on a product-to-product basis, there are some great products on the market. Where we think we’ll have the edge is with service.”
That service is being delivered by a workforce of 202 staff, which is to be bolstered by another 122 still to join. A measured approach to bringing the hotel to full capacity (both in terms of staffing and room inventory) with the upcoming fallow summer period in mind. Leading them is an executive committee, made up of a mix of experienced Taj leaders and managers, all of whom have experience in Dubai.
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