Grand plans

Grand Hyatt Dubai's new general manager Jan Peter van der Ree talks to Hotelier Middle East about his 20-year career with Hyatt, new challenges he is facing in Dubai and his plans and ambitions for himself and the property.

How long have you been with Hyatt?

I've been with Hyatt for 20 years now. I started off with Hyatt in Germany; when I applied for the job they were just moving into the German market in Cologne. So I started there in 1988 as assistant restaurant manager.

What has kept you working with the Hyatt brand?

I think the attraction is that this company is continuously looking for new opportunities to grow and the product is constantly evolving. Not in a popular way as such, but in a thorough way, where it is sustainable over time.

I think this boils down to the fact that it is still a private company. Some companies like trying out new fads, and they jump all over the place and don't give time for a new concept to mature: if it doesn't immediately pay out they very quickly move on.

Whereas we will say let's take our time and do something serious, and make sure we give a project time to mature and then decide whether it's a success.

Everything is done very thoroughly and with an eye on the long-term, not just the short-term as with some public companies. And that inspires confidence. There are a lot of people who have been with Hyatt for a long time, and they appreciate and understand what the company is doing.

Prior to taking this role, you were working in Vietnam; what was the appeal of coming to Dubai?

I think a lot of hoteliers around the world have some curiosity about seeing what's happening in this place, because everyone's taking about Dubai. I think the charm of Dubai is that it's a happening place. What people talk about, they do.

This is not somewhere where they bounce about ideas and then see how people react: they come up with an idea and before you know it it's there, it's happening. That's something that people want to be part of.

As a relatively new member of the Grand Hyatt team, what strengths and weaknesses have you observed at the property so far?

The biggest strength of the hotel is probably the ability, despite being the largest property in Dubai, to provide great service with an eye for detail. We can hold huge conferences for 500 to 1500 people and they will all be served well.

It's a mature product, having been in the market for five years, and staff know how to deal with people and meetings and large groups.

However I do think if you go into a hotel that's been around for five years, you're going to find things that were set up in the planning phase and around the opening time that after five years might need a change or an improvement.

For example we have a great fitness area and a wonderful outdoor gardens and pools, but one area which is not so much on a large scale is our spa facility. We are making plans now, which are already at quite an advanced stage, for expanding the spa.

That will come online in 2008. We currently have six treatment rooms but we're going to add another 10, so these facilities will enable us to offer a far wider range of treatments, and the market is asking for that.

In terms of our meetings facilities we are able to cater for larger events of up to 2000, but for the mid-size meetings we feel we can still offer better facilities and we're working on that this year too.

Have you encountered any particular challenges in Dubai so far?

Well the cultural diversity can be a challenge. We employ more than 70 different nationalities, so melding them together into one real, solid team of employees with the same mindset, the same goals, the same future perspective - I think that's one of the biggest challenges.

What does the future hold for Grand Hyatt Dubai?

Regarding my own career with Hyatt, my priority is to do something I enjoy, that's the most important thing. And this hotel, with its size and inventory is something very different for me, so I will definitely enjoy making the most out of what it has to offer.

I think over the next five years competition in Dubai will continue to grow, and Dubai will finally reach the saturation point everyone's been talking about.

As a result there will be a higher demand for quality and value for money. So it will require new efforts from us.

The other thing we will continue to work on is environmental issues. We have been doing a great deal of work on this already, with solar panels and so on, but there are other things we can do to become even greener than we already are, and that's high on the agenda.