Cora Stuart, Paul Bridger, Janet Fitzner, Stephan Vanden Auweele, Simeon Olle, Henning Fries and Peter Blackburn
That is a very good point. What responsibility do you take in terms of maintaining staff wellbeing?
CS: I’ve had the opportunity in this hotel to do things a little differently from the traditional hotels in Dubai. We managed at the time when we were opening to get some really good housing, not your usual compound housing, but independent housing outside for our staff and I fought for that to make sure that we got them housing like any other part of the world where staff would live in a beautiful apartment. They love it, I don’t visit the apartments as much but I know for sure that they love it because I see them every single week. I have a group meeting with 10 staff every week…they love the fact they have the independence to live as they would in Singapore or Malaysia.
So I think this is something that hopefully Dubai will change because I think we’ve set that [benchmark], we’ve set it up in Dubai. I’m starting with one hotel so it’s been a lot easier for me to start that independence.
Paul Bridger: Staff accommodation is very important to the team and it reflects on how they behave day to day with your guests as well. I take a slightly different approach in that when I do go to visit the staff accommodation it’s in a social way, in jeans and t-shirt, I’ll watch the cricket team, rather than walk around with a clip board.
JF: For me of course I was coming to the Middle East for the first time, so this culture was all new, but one of my first actions of course was to understand my team of employees with 57 nationalities, which I never had before. It was very important for me to individually meet my employee groups and to hear the feedback and that was the fastest way I could get any information as to what they feel and what I can improve. I think that it is very important that they also see your efforts, that you take them seriously and that you try whatever you can do. Of course I would love to do much more but financial resources have to fit as well.
SVA: I think it’s being honest and fair and keeping the discussion alive, like you say you cannot do everything, but if you explain it, rather than saying that’s ‘how it is and shut up’, I think these days are finished. But if you tell them, we cannot do this because it costs so much money, or we cannot do this because of the law or the owner or whatever; in reality I think if you explain it to people and they perceive it to be fair then it is easier to have them accept things. In Abu Dhabi, housing is problematic, so I have to say we can try to make it better, but if you want to house 300/400 people in Abu Dhabi you don’t have 25,000 options – you have one, Mussafah!
CS: One of the biggest skills we need now is more collaboration rather than direction. I feel with my staff exactly as Stephan says, you have to get the buy-in. Let’s stick together and figure it out together.
HF: From the management side, it’s much more transparent. You are sharing much more with your employees, your constituency, because they are such a vital part in achieving some of those objectives you have. The more you are transparent about the pressures on your business, the more chance you have that everyone is putting in the same role. I think that’s a big change from going back a few years when there was a real disconnect between the people who have to achieve all those objectives and how it actually translated into real business.
Advertisement
What are you current priorities as GM?
Peter Blackburn: Our main priority is the brand recognition, service is another priority; we are highly focused on service, and also F&B. We are a dry hotel, so we go that extra mile on the quality of the food and are a little bit higher on the food costs. We have regular team briefings every fortnight but it’s more of a relaxation, it’s done casually and we address these issues and service quality and lots of training too.
HF: We are about six months on the market, we are full on business, but there are still some things to be done around the building. The brand name Fairmont is known but it’s not necessarily known for the Abu Dhabi market so introducing this and making sure that all the market segments start understanding what our product is all about, and of course, that relates into the business. That’s really the key priority for me at the moment.
JF: As a well established hotel, but with increasing competition around me, the main target is to keep our customer satisfaction and service so that we don’t lose the service standards we have set and which we are well known for, and we have loyal client bases that we have to focus on keeping. Of course, we have to look more at what is challenging right now — the food and beverage situation — so we can adapt a little bit to the changed market trends and the price sensitivities and we are looking now at changing some menu concepts in some of the restaurants. We are also grabbing new sales opportunities and we are [working] to keep the profitability.
SO: The hotel was well opened, I think the positioning of this hotel and the brand is good, the company has done very well in getting brand recognition to people in Dubai. Commercially I think the hotel is in good shape and is doing well and I think that we’re relatively successful commercially, so for us it’s really about the customer engagement. My focus is customer engagement and service delivery and that’s really the main priority currently.
SVA: We started one and half years ago and meanwhile there are 41 Alofts open, we’re opening another 15 this year, plus there’s another 16/17 in construction, so we are definitely getting this lifestyle message out, trying to differentiate ourselves from the traditional brands and get the message out to the next generation of travellers. This is something a little more funky and hip than my grandfather’s hotel. I don’t say that everybody is going to shift tomorrow but there is going to be change and we see change already in the last few years..
A lot of hotels want to be everything for everyone and we don’t want to do that, that’s what our customers say, ‘don’t try to be everything for everyone, just give us a product that we want’. You really have to target your customers more. A lot of hotels are trying to attract the sheikh, budget travellers, the old, the young. It’s very difficult; it’s like trying to sell the same shoe to the mother, the grandmother and the daughter.
Paul Bridger: Priorities for me are about demonstrating to people that they no longer have to spend AED 1000-1500 to get a clean, comfortable room and great service, and the way we’re doing that is through making sure our team really deliver for our guest, so we are training the team, developing the team, motivating the team.
CS: The hotel has been open six months. Being an independent brand that does not have any other hotels around, my priority right now is to cement the recognition of the hotel within Dubai and we’re starting to look at how we can reach the international market through our personality [to communicate] that Dubai has something really different to offer right now in this hotel and we’re looking at creating some really fun experiences for after the summer. We’re sitting down now to figure out how we can take it to the next level in terms of this concept of entertaining our customers.
Search our database of more than 2,700 industry companies
