Samir Arora was promoted to cluster general manager of R Hotels at the start of this year, moving up from his previous role as GM of the Ramada Downtown Dubai.
His remit now includes the Ramada, along with the Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham Jumeirah Beach Residence Dubai. “Given the location of the property, I always knew that it has got very good potential. It has still not realised its true potential. I think that’s why this change happened,” Arora says of his promotion.
He speaks about a few of the property’s stand-out features: “We are the only property to have the maximum inventory of one-bedroom units. No other hotel has such a large inventory of [73 units]. Also, the size of the rooms, as you can see the room we are sitting in [two-bedroom] is 150m2. The one-bedroom units are about 100m2.” Arora is proud of the styling of the rooms and points to their different elements while he sips on a shot of coffee. “The interiors are very minimalistic: the in-room furnishing is kept to a minimum, which renders a spacious feel to the room.”
Arora quickly identified areas of the hotel which needed work, and has wasted little time implementing change. “We thought of taking advantage of the one-bedrooms and introduced the sofa-beds. That helps us get an advantage and position the property suited for two [adults] + two [kids].”
The addition of the sofa-beds has helped position and sell the rooms differently, according to Arora. “For those people who find $544.49 (AED 2,000) to be a high price point [for a two bedroom], they can rent our one-bedroom for about $381-$408 (AED 1,400-1,500) per night, which is better than a two-bedroom rate. It is however more expensive than the initial price we used to sell our one-bedrooms at.”
Arora expects a lot from the JBR-based property and gives a breakdown of where the property stands in comparison to the market standard. “We are still behind the market by about 20% in terms of the [room] rate and also on the occupancy front, by about 15%-20%,” he comments.
He continues: “The other thing is that whatever results I have seen in the last few months, we have managed to mitigate our slide compared to the market. At the moment we are stagnant and not sliding and that is the most positive result.”
Arora, however, says Dubai’s tourism has grown as compared to the rest of the world. “The way I see it is the supply and demand imbalance... iDubai as a market is still very resilient having grown at 7%-8% in the last couple of years, whereas the world grew by only 3%-4%,” he says.
Arora cites the financial crunch in Europe and Russia as one of the factors affecting market conditions. “It is to do with the rouble and euro. But I see this sorting by mid-2017. I don’t predict a pre-2008 level, but definitely the market improving than the present day. Demand will catch up with supply from next year, I think there are quite a few rooms coming online this year, but not as many in 2017.”
Market conditions aside, Arora points out to internal reasons as to why the property has not achieved its full potential. “It has to do with the staffing levels, the standard, the systems and procedures. They have been there but they have been very inconsistent. So, it’s just a matter of retraining the team and making sure the systems and procedures are sorted and are 100% intimated on ground.”
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