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HE Mubarak Hamad Al Muhairi
Director general, Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority
Managing Director, Tourism Development and Investment Company
This year’s coveted top spot in the Hotelier Middle East Power 50 is awarded to HE Mubarak Hamad Al Muhairi, a UAE national who over the past 12 months has demonstrated an unreserved commitment to the development and promotion of Abu Dhabi’s tourism and hospitality sectors.
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As director general of the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA) since its inception in 2004, and managing director of Tourism Development and Investment Company (TDIC) since 2005, Al Muhairi has been instrumental in growing the emirate’s tourism infrastructure, including the creation of the highly anticipated Cultural District on Saadiyat Island, which will include the world’s largest single concentration of premier cultural institutions, such as the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi museum and Louvre Abu Dhabi.
And while the hotel market in Abu Dhabi has faced possibly its most challenging period to date over the past 12 months, Al Muhairi — who celebrated his 40th birthday this year — has continued to innovate and has ensured that ADTA and TDIC are never out of the global spotlight.
As a result, Abu Dhabi has already beaten its target to increase guest stays by 10% to 1.65 million in 2010. The emirate reported a 16% rise in its hotel guest performance in the first half of 2010 compared to the same period in 2009. Figures released in July showed that 936,579 guests stayed in Abu Dhabi’s 116 hotels and hotel apartments from January to June this year, with guest nights rising 11% compared to the first half of 2009 to stand at 2.47 million in 2010.
“We are now well above our targeted annual growth of 10% and have seen double-digit monthly growth since last November’s staging of Formula 1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix,” commented Al Muhairi.
There was a 20% rise in the domestic market, while the UK was the most productive overseas market with an 18% rise on 2009. Overall, the international market grew by 13% — a reversal of last year’s scenario — and guest arrivals from the GGC increased by 30%.
This is not to say that the ADTA hasn’t faced challenges as a result of increased supply, however, and the dynamics of the market have changed — over the past six months, occupancy levels have fallen by 18% but are still a relatively healthy 64% and revenue dropped by 5% to AED 2.1 billion (approx. US $572 million).
But Al Muhairi says that the competition is assisting in building Abu Dhabi’s proposition within the international trade arena and the new hotels have also improved Abu Dhabi’s culinary scene, with food and beverage revenue now accounting for 39% of all hotel revenues — compared to 33% this time last year.
The target for Al Muhairi now is to increase the average length of stay of hotel guests to three nights, from 2.6.
“We believe that this issue will be positively impacted with a further spur to our leisure tourism proposition when Ferrari World Abu Dhabi — the world’s biggest indoor theme park — opens this October 28,” explained Al Muhairi. “In addition the destination is attracting more tourism service providers with new watersports companies entering the market and developers planning dedicated overnight-stay desert camps.”
“At the same time, we will expand our overseas outreach with plans for an ADTA office in Moscow to nurture the Russia and CIS markets.”
And in addition to increasing visitor numbers, the ADTA has taken the opportunity to use the downtown as a way to pursue a variety of new avenues, specifically the promotion of sustainable tourism. The tourism authority is backing the first ever World Green Tourism Abu Dhabi conference, introducing Green Hotel Building Guidelines into its hotel classification system, and has become only the second tourism board in the world, after the Korean National Tourism Board, to achieve the Global Reporting Initiative (B grade) for a sustainability report.
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