The Hotelier Middle East Sustainable Design and Operations Summit advisory panel met ahead of the event to set the agenda for the conference.
“The second driver is rising costs; we saw the subsidies being removed — Abu Dhabi is increasing the cost of water by 8-9%; electricity is increasing by 8% for hotels, and in other industries by more than 15% or 20%.
“Sharjah increased prices, so the government is now removing subsidies in places that previously had them.
“Another driver is private investment in power distribution,” he adds.
“If you look at South Africa or Nigeria, their electricity prices are not very attractive for investors to inject
money, so they are increasing the prices year-on-year. You have to step up your game to have the same base cost.”
Ultimately, the panellists agree that in an ideal world, operators would have standardised KPIs, which would force developers to invest in sustainable construction and design.
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“These days the operators are becoming involved earlier, which is a good thing. But I don’t think they are involved in the concept of the building, in the concept of the MEP. And I think that’s why we need to target the developers,” Hurrychurn says.
“The hotel industry is the only industry that openly and competitively shares performance and standards; it’s a great system.
“If every hotelier standardised their KPIs, then the developer would have to build [hotels] to that standard. ” he asserts.
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