“The other advantage is you always have traffic in Hamad International Airport. The airport is open 24/7, which means we have the opportunity to catch guests at any point, and provide different kinds of services. The best example is Vitality [the hotel’s fitness and wellness centre] — we provide spa treatments, massages at 2am even, which you wouldn’t be able to offer if you were in the city. That’s why we have very heavy traffic at Vitality too.”
Being part of Dhiafatina Hotels, the hotel works closely with the various divisions within Qatar Airways in order to “create a synergy”.
“We want to take full advantage of all the subsidiaries and divisions within the group. It’s very important for us to get the support from our colleagues, and support them when they need us.
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“We are working very closely with the sales department, the marketing division, corporate communications, and the procurement division is supporting us a lot. We are also working very closely with Qatar Duty Free,” he says.
And while Qatar Airways only recently revealed its intentions to branch into hospitality, Anric reveals it had implemented a structure well before he joined; however, the details are still being fine tuned.
For instance, when Dhiafatina was introduced at the Arabian Travel Market in May, Qatar Airways CEO Akber Al Baker had said all hotels would operate under the Oryx brand.
However, when asked about a rebrand, Anric says such decisions are at the “discretion of executive management inside Qatar Airways, so I can’t say whether it will happen or not”.
“Changing the name of a hotel is very sensitive because there are a lot of legal matters. It might happen; but for the time being I have not been asked to prepare for any change. We’ll see in the future if we will be the Oryx Airport Hotel.”
Anric is resolute in his belief, however, that the structure the group is putting in place will support it as it expands.
“Dhiafatina is a very young entity; it has been announced very recently. We receive a lot of financial advice regarding the way forward to maximise the revenue and profitability of the hotel.
“The structure, as of today, is quite delicate, but the full plan has been presented to the management of Qatar Airways in order to enlarge the manning and the structure of Dhiafatina so that the company is able to support all the new hotels that are going to increase the portfolio of the division,” he explains.
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