GM Interview: Robert-Jan Woltering

The Fairmont Dubai was FRHI Hotels & Resorts’ first property outside of the US; it opened in February 2002. At the time, it was one of the taller buildings on Sheikh Zayed Road, alongside the Dubai World Trade Centre. Fourteen years later, the area is busy, with multiple hotels just metres away from the Fairmont Dubai. The competition is fierce and hoteliers are looking to constantly reinvent and rejuvenate.

In such an environment, Robert-Jan Woltering joined FRHI towards the end of 2015 as regional vice president UAE and general manager of Fairmont Dubai. With more than 28 years of experience in the hospitality industry, this is not his first stint in Dubai. Previously with AccorHotels, Woltering was executive assistant general manager of the Sofitel Dubai City Centre Hotel and Residence for two years until 1999.

Now back in the UAE, Woltering will oversee the overall operation, performance and strategic direction of all FRHI properties in the United Arab Emirates, in addition to his role of general manager of Fairmont Dubai.

Woltering tells Hotelier Middle East: “I’m first of all general manager of Fairmont Dubai, which is a great honour and privilege because I do feel this is an iconic hotel which has led the way for many, many years.” He reveals confidently that his plan for the hotel is to reposition it in the market.

Continuing, he says: “I have a secondary prime role, and it is the regional vice president role, where I lead a few teams.” He ticks them off: Raffles Dubai, the Fairmonts on The Palm Jumeirah, Abu Dhabi Ajman, Dubai, and the upcoming Fujairah and Abu Dhabi Marina properties. “Those are very interesting responsibilities where I totally can drive my passion, my innovation and creativity, and maybe assist the teams to reach higher summits,” he adds.

Among his plans include an unwavering focus on food and beverage. In addition to the repositioning of the Fairmont Dubai, he highlights his wish to improve F&B quality. One of the changes that will take place from this month is hiring Tuomas Heikkinen as the new executive chef of the property — he joins from sister property Raffles Dubai.

He says: “Do we want to give it [F&B] an extra kick? Yeah, for sure. Is it going to be something totally different to what we’ve done in the past? No. But that’s because we were extremely good in the past. We just want to maintain that level and maybe improve it a little bit.”

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Talking about his strategy for F&B, he says: “I want to make it one of those places where you have to be at least once a week. It is about repositioning a hotel in pricing as well as product, preparing a possible uplift and renovation of the hotel.”

In an exclusive to Hotelier, Woltering says he is working on “full-fledged renovation” of the property, which will include the rooms and suites, along with a few restaurants, including Pronto, Café Sushi and The Exchange Grill. The lobby, which recently completed a multi-million dollar renovation, will stay as it is; however, the executive conference centre which is spread across a total area of 1,234m2 on the 33rd floor will get a second look.

Woltering is adamant throughout that he’s not trying to compete with hotels in different areas. He explains: “There’s no need for me as a hotel to compete with hotels in Deira or JBR. What I do believe and what I would like to discuss with DTCM and the authorities is, can we [local] hotels associate ourselves a little bit stronger, and position ourselves as Sheikh Zayed Road and do joint marketing initiatives to promote that area? I think that will be interesting and innovative and further develop this area as a city within a city.”

Returning to the UAE after more than 15 years, Woltering claims life and business hasn’t changed that much. “The only thing that’s changed is the online distribution through third party operators, Booking.com, Expedia, and our own websites. And that is starting to impact our business in a good way.

“I believe that it’s only the ones who play hard ball and are on top of their game who will survive. If you’re not visible online, and fully involved in the online distribution war game — if I can call it that — you are not only losing business but in the long-term you will lose the war.”

He is philosophical about OTAs, and says that “nobody can promote a city as well as Booking.com and Expedia because they have marketing budgets that we as an individual hotel do not have”. However, he adds: “But we can offer security of the booking, and a best price guarantee, and these are things these [OTAs] cannot offer. They don’t offer loyalty points which we do, so there is a huge advantage of booking directly on the dot-com sites. Those are advantages nobody can take away.”

Woltering concludes: “I’ve got my roadmap laid out for me, and I know where I want to take the different properties.”

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Changes are afoot…

Robert-Jan Woltering reveals two more F&B outlets will be added to Fairmont the Palm. An in-house concept will open just outside its all-day diner this summer.

In addition, a third-party concept is currently in negotiation for the property.

Within Fairmont Dubai, Catch Dubai and Bistrot Bagatelle sit where Spectrum on One used to be located. The Spectrum brunch is now found at Fairmont Ajman. We ask whether Fairmont Dubai will re-introduce anything in the now empty ‘brunch’ space. All Woltering says is that something new will be created to cater more to families, perhaps in the area which houses Pronto and Café Sushi.

Raffles Dubai will not be tweaked too much; only the bar and the all-day dining restaurant are being considered for an upgrade.

Fairmont Fujairah, which Woltering hopes will open by the end of 2016, will have “brand new” concepts, numbering four or five.

He says outsourcing in F&B is beneficial: “It puts us back on our feet. Maybe as hotelier-restaurateurs, and I mean in the generic sense outside FRHI, maybe we’ve been too arrogant and too easy about our food and beverage products. What you need to do as a hotelier to really make a great restaurant is to think a concept through from A to Z. I believe this is something we have forgotten worldwide — you open restaurants and think they’re going to run. You need to make your restaurants for the outside customer. You do not make a restaurant for your hotel guest.”

He continues: “It’s interesting to have third party operators because it gets you into balance and to have that balance between your own restaurants and third parties is great, because it keeps you awake. It gets the profitability into balance and it gives you interesting concepts.”

He concludes on the matter: “Where you have to be careful as an operator is that you do not outsource everything, because then you outsource your know-how.”