On Hotelier Express’ visit to the new Tryp by Wyndham in Barsha Heights, Dubai, the taxi pulled into the hotel driveway and the cab door was pulled open by the property’s beaming hotel manager, much to our surprise. This occurred a few days before the hotel was due to officially open, with the entire property a bristling hive of activity, yet hotel manager Jo-Ella Moore herself was hands-on in leading the crew of hotel staff waiting to welcome guest arrivals.
Talk about a ‘wow’ welcome.
Moore, the dynamic, loquacious, nattily dressed (in a colourful shift mini-dress and beribboned champagne-hued sneakers) leader of the ‘Trypsters’, is the vividly hip personification of Tryp, the upper mid-scale lifestyle hotel brand by Wyndham Hotel Group. Youthful, attractive and astutely smart, she walks and talks and wears the brand well.
Asked to clarify about the hotel’s positioning, Moore enthuses: “We’re really moving in line with the whole new face of Tecom/Barsha Heights. They’re beautifying the area and they’re making it hip and urban which is essentially what Tryp is. So we’ve really positioned our location in the perfect area. It’s all about that budget-conscious concept traveller who comes here and then explores because they’ve got the travel budget to do so. It’s exciting.”
Moore is mindful of the size of her hotel and that she’s got a lot of rooms to fill and so, is careful to hedge her bets, preferring to cast her net to include traditional, nearby markets as well as those emerging from far and wide.
“For the Barsha Heights area, a lot of it is focused on the GCC market, whether that’s a fly-in or a drive-through market from Saudi Arabia and Oman. We also have a lot of interest from large volume groups coming from India as well as from Chinese tour series,” she says.
“It’s quite a nice bag of eggs. We don’t have to have everything in one basket,” she adds. “We’ve got a great mix of leisure and corporate and obviously, groups. The way we’ve configured the hotel is that one-third of our inventory is twin beds, which is great for families as well as for the groups market, 250 rooms based on twin configuration. Something that’s really needed in Dubai and quite timely in this area.”
Volume is the key to filling the hotel’s rooms, Moore concurs, and forms the core component of her strategy in achieving her most important objectives during the hotel’s crucial first year.
“Basically, we’ve got to meet those financial targets for our owners and for our brand, that’s on everyone’s minds right now,” she says.
Moore states that while she’s also keen on developing a corporate social responsibility programme with her team, to see how they can all contribute to the community, a more pressing concern for a hotel that is geared towards today’s digital-savvy travellers, is social media feedback and engagement.
“One of our most important goals is, we want to get positive feedback on sites such as TripAdvisor, Booking.com, and of course, any of the social media outlets, to show that this is not just a hotel, we’ve got great characters working here too,” she says.
Moore confirms that 160 employees, comprising 29 different nationalities, are already onboard, representing only 50% of her manning, so she’s still hiring. What is she looking for specifically?
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