Media One Hotel reclaims Hotel Team accolade

After first winning the award in 2012, Media One Hotel returns with a bang to take away the trophy of Hotel Team of the Year at the Hotelier Middle East Awards 2016. 

With Four Seasons Resort Dubai at Jumeirah Beach taking the highly commended nod home, Media One Hotel also had to fend off competition from the other shortlisted properties: Doubletree by Hilton Resort & Spa Marjan Island, InterContinental Jeddah, Kempinski Ajman, and Radisson Blu Hotel, Dubai Media City.

The award was presented to the team by category sponsor Sealed Air Diversey, and on stage with the winners was Somer Gundogdu, VP (Africa, Middle East and Turkey) (scroll down to view the team's reaction on video).

Each and every department at the hotel was recognised by the judges for being incredibly hard working, passionate and enthusiastic. With their efforts, every department of the hotel delivered on budget, and saved its owners a lot of money while staying efficient.

Media One Hotel general manager Mark Lee told Hotelier: "Hopefully the judges saw a lot of consistency and improvements, and hopefully they saw team spirit, which is the main thing."

The jury commended the Media One team for growing revenue year-on-year despite softening market conditions and Lee said: "It’s a really tough industry and we have to constantly think outside the box and that’s one of the things we encourage at Media One: creativity and innovation, and as we say, go beyond the ordinary.

"That really is, in a nutshell, really what we’re all about."

He said being an independent property allows the team the ability to change and do things very quickly in line with the market. "It’s a very diverse market, we need to be able to make quick decisions and we have the support of the ownership and the asset management company to help us to do that," Lee added.

Lee revealed that the ongoing renovations will continue on through to next year, and he said: "We will keep on innovating and changing ourselves in line with the diverse market in Dubai."

The old Hollywood glamour-themed event took place on October 26 at The Ritz-Carlton DIFC.