“If you’ve got quality in London, it’s well-known that you can deliver that anywhere around the world,” he asserts.
“It’s a platform for performance. They always say that London is a theatre; if you can break it in London, you can break it anywhere else in the world.
“London is a tough market; there are a lot of hotels, but if you have the right location that’s a big success — and then we also have a great team.”
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At the helm of the operations of Dukes London is general manager Debrah Dhugga, who reports into Bin Sulayem directly. Having been in her GM role since 2009, Dhugga is now to oversee Dukes London and Dukes Oceana as managing director.
Part of her remit will involve ensuring the correct implementation of the Dukes brand at the Dubai property, while continuing to be very hands-on at the London location. Currently general managers for Dukes Oceana are being shortlisted and Bin Sulayem expects to have the full ExCom on board by October 2015, with the hotel to be up and running in quarter one of 2016.
With 500 staff to recruit across the hotel and serviced apartments, the team has a big job ahead, however with “CVs flowing in”, Bin Sulayem claims he is “well down the road now”.
While British candidates have shown interest, he expects the workforce to be international, just as with most properties in the region. However, being Emirati himself, he is keen to see more UAE locals enter the hospitality side of the company.
“I would obviously prefer to promote and encourage Emiratis in terms of recruitment, but at the same time I would not risk delaying anything for the sake of that.”
The training process will combine staff from the London property coming to Dubai to share their knowledge with new recruits, as well as familiarisation trips to Dukes London so that Dubai staff can “see and feel what the Dukes delivery is all about”.
The team is looking to attract a similar market mix on Palm Jumeirah as it does to London’s Mayfair property, this being largely North American, German and Russian high-end leisure and corporate guests. However, with Palm Jumeirah being typically a leisure destination, the team will have to implement some extra measures to ensure the hotel doesn’t lose its classic British feel by becoming purely a beach resort.
“It will be a very chic hotel, not an on-trend hotel. We want it to be classic; a hotel for grown-ups. When they go to Dukes Bar we will have dress codes, people won’t be in beach wear. It will be a place to go out in the evening,” says Bin Sulayem.
Being close to Sheikh Zayed Road and Dubai Media City will help to attract a share of corporate guests he believes, while the meeting rooms and terrace area will be suitable for small weddings and corporate events, and so the MICE market will be targeted to an extent.
While still in his early thirties, Bin Sulayem has endured his share of challenges as CEO of Seven Tides, and is conscious that controlling the financials was imperative to his family’s first hotel venture; Mövenpick Ibn Battuta Gate Hotel Dubai, which opened in 2010.
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