Getting ready for Ramadan: hotels prepare

Hoteliers are predicting it will be ‘business as usual' during Ramadan this year, with some properties gearing up to cope with extra bookings and events.

Beirut-based Royal Garden Hotel general manager's assistant Aude Etter and Bayview Hotel sales and marketing director Ramia Nammour both said their properties were not planning any special programmes for Ramadan.

"Our occupancy is about 50% heading into Ramadan," Nammour said.

"I think [business] this year may be better than last year, and if the current [political] situation stays the same I think it will be a lot better than last year."

InterContinental Muscat general manager Renzo Cavagliotti said his property was going to put most of its resources into Iftar.

"We will not be having any outside tents, because of the climate, which is getting hotter each year - we are trying to push it all inside to make it more appealing for families," he said.

"We are still a way off [Ramadan], and looking at last year compared to this year it is exactly the same [level of bookings]. Normally, we do have a pick up within the last seven days of Ramadan."

The Hilton Kuwait would also be providing a tent - capable of seating 450 people - according to general manager Andreas Bossard, with 25 smaller individual tents being made available for people to eat and smoke shisha.

"It does quiet down a little bit, but life still has to go on and business is still going on," he said.

"Occupancy goes down by about 10%, but that is because of the local leisure market dropping off. Everything this year looks the same as previous years."

But Movenpick Hotel Anwar Al Madinah general manager Adel Bilbars said his hotel would be fully booked during Ramadan.

"We don't have anything special planned, we are just coping with the [large] number of people we are expecting during this period," he explained.

"We are expecting a full house for the whole month, from a variety of nationalities. This year is going to be busier than normal, because [Ramadan] coincides with the school's summer vacations, so there are more people coming from the local market and from the GCC.

"It's not like a special promotion where you can put on a special Iftar buffet - when you have 4000 people in the hotel, it is completely different."

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