The split between business and leisure bookings at London Crown One stands at 35% business and corporate and 65% leisure. “We are a natural choice for corporates putting up their new recruits during training programmes. Often we see bookings for 15 days or more for large groups of new employs arriving into the emirate.”
Anyone staying more than five nights prefers to have kitchen and laundry facilities, says Nanda. The average length of stay at London Crown One is 3.5 nights, with many business guests opting to extend their booking. “They stay in Dubai until business is complete – so we regularly see business travellers extending their stay, we offer a home away from home.”
The daily operational challenges facing budget and mid-scale hotel apartments in the UAE are largely a result of the team, says Nanda. “Please remember your teams make you, you don’t make the team. Your people can make or ruin your business – you succeed because of them – luckily I have good team members – I offer them authority to make decisions, they are empowered – they make my life a little easier.” Currently London Crown One has 52 members of staff, and employee turnover stands at approximately 10 to 12% annually. “You must also remember that if you make your team feel like this is their hotel – the turnover is hardly an issue; it is not only money – it is also how good staff feel working in your business. Give them freedom and they’ll feel wanted.” Staff can walk into Nanda’s office at any time, regarding any issues, personal or professional: “They feel empowered and they are involved in running the hotel – they protect it like their own.” If it’s a small decision, his team have full authority to take action, alternatively they can call him 24/7 if they need any assistance. “Finding new staff is a major challenge, because salaries are not as high has four- and five-star properties. We cannot match the salaries of luxury properties and often lose good candidates to these hotels; for this reason we will recruit fresh and we train them ourselves.”
Nanda offers his personal insight into what hoteliers can expect in the year ahead: “Dubai is not a city, it’s a brand,” he begins. “This brand has been marketed very well under our able rulers – as a result people come to brand Dubai, just look at the cleanliness on the streets – when people come here they see a clean city with good attractions, it is opulent, Dubai is opulence, look at downtown Dubai too – it’s a wow city – the rulers have made all this possible and they have made Dubai a globally recognised brand.”
Nanda claims that mid-market tourists are ‘followers’, meaning they will wait until they hear more and more about a destination before they begin to arrive. In Nanda’s opinion, Dubai is now ready for a mid-market influx of budget travellers. “Events and attractions in Dubai are created for tourists, this is what will sustain the arrival figures here; this is all part of the strategy created by Dubai.”
He concludes: “This city will go through hell in terms of occupancy and revenues in the short term; a big problem for us in the mid-market is the hotel rates of four and five star properties – when they start cutting their prices to drive occupancy, what are we to do? Will a guest stay with a mid-market hotel when for an extra 25 dirhams per night he can take advantage of a four-star offer? This tells you where the market is going in 2016 – people with deep pockets will survive – they may see losses – one year will be absorbed, perhaps two years – but how many others can survive – if they don’t get the revenue what are they going to do?”” He ends: “This is going to be the toughest year I have seen in a 25 year career – 2015 was hard, 2016 will be harder, by 2017 I will be saying “Thank God’”.
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