Following the speedy departure of the F1 cars and the thousands of Grand Prix spectators, Louise Birchall investigates what lies ahead for Abu Dhabi’s seven new hotels

Sat in the peaceful Yas Island Rotana lobby early last month, it’s hard to imagine the “tsunami” of guests that Joe Batshoun, complex GM for Yas Island Rotana and Centro by Rotana Yas Island, recalls flooding into the hotel just one week before, during the first Formula 1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Now, guests are outnumbered by the many attentive staff. At breakfast, one polite employee carries my plate to the table, another carries my handbag and one pulls out a chair, while a fourth staff member pours some tea.

The quietness extends across the plaza to the Radisson Blu Hotel Abu Dhabi Yas Island, only there aren’t quite as many employees.

“Our staff didn’t have a day off in 10 days so I’ve given everybody five days’ holiday for all their hard work,” explains Radisson Blu and Park Inn Abu Dhabi Yas Island cluster general manager Torbjörn Bodin.

The hoteliers say this is just the calm after the storm, but to a sceptical onlooker there’s a distinct drought of guests, which raises the question of ‘what happens next?’

What does the New Year hold for the seven Aldar Hotels and Hospitality-owned Yas Island properties now, since the F1 cars have sped off, taking the spectators with them?

Only 2010 will tell whether Yas Island hotels will be able to attract enough guests without the hype of the Grand Prix. However, the hotels have proved sceptics wrong before and are convinced they can do it again.

Previously doubtful industry players have told Hotelier that the biggest surprise of 2009 was the speed at which the Yas Island development and its hotels came together. Even the Yas Island hotels’ management had their doubts.

“Two weeks before the race there was nothing on the plaza; there wasn’t even a road to the hotel, but when you saw how fast these things were appearing you were amazed. You’d go for lunch and come back and the landscape would have changed,” observes Bodin.

Story continues below
Advertisement

Similarly, Batshoun admits being “stressed and concerned” over whether the hotels would be ready for the looming race deadline.

“I was showing the Rotana chairman around the hotels and he just kept saying ‘wow’, while I’m saying ‘I don’t think it’s going to be ready’. But the last time that he had seen it, there had been nothing. The foundations were only laid in February 2008. It’s not only the quality and magnitude of what has been achieved on Yas Island that is mind boggling; it’s the speed,” says Batshoun.

Furthermore, in August, wholesale giant Gulliver Travels Associates (GTA) director of business development MEA Younes Ajdi warned Yas Island hotels that they were “unlikely” to achieve the 100% occupancy rates they expected during the race due to the global economic downturn.

A confident Paul Bell, managing director of Aldar Hotels and Hospitality, fought off such speculation saying the hotels would “not merely be full”, but would be “turning away many room enquiries”.

And Bell was right. All seven hotels open on the island, comprising two Rezidor hotels, two IHG hotels, two Rotana hotels and Aldar Hotels’ first owned and operated venture The Yas Hotel, claimed full occupancy of available rooms during the race days; though not without a few hiccups.

The Yas Hotel traded more than 400 bedrooms out of a possible 499, but “lots of hotels trade a year after opening with five to 10% of rooms out of order,” defends Bell. Similarly, technical issues meant that 40 rooms at the Radisson could not be sold.

“The room I stayed in was out of order. The bathroom mirror was broken, there were only two lights working, the TV didn’t switch on and the door wouldn’t lock,” says Bodin.

Forecasting performance

Anticipating that Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA) would impose a cap on room rates during the race days, the hotels appropriately set rates in line with ADTA’s expectations (ADTA could not reveal the capped rate), but significantly higher than a normal demand period.