Walk the talk

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Cathy Mead, Director of Sales & Marketing, Raffles Dubai.

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Seema Pande, Area Director of Sales and Marketing, The Address Hotels & Resorts.

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Michael Marshall, Corporate Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Rotana Hotel Management Corporation Ltd.

Is there too much pressure on hoteliers at the moment?

Daoud: We always put the blame for the prices on the hotels but what about the other sectors? The other sectors have not adjusted like the hotels do - airlines to a certain extent maybe they did, [but not] F&B outside of the hotels, taxis, transportation etc. The infrastructure is not supporting the hotels to come up with the right pricing for the whole city and that is what we are facing.

Mead: We are seen as a very expensive destination for F&B.

Daoud: When customers visit travel agents in Saudi Arabia and choose a package with an airline and hotel, they also think about how much it will cost to take a taxi from the airport to the hotel and then from the hotel to go around the city, then to buy food from outside - all of that is not really helping the hotel industry.

Marshall: I think the airlines are under pressure now though. Saudi Airlines now have dropped their price to Dubai, which makes it more affordable for people to come.

Daoud: What about the flights coming into Dubai? You'll find a huge decrease in the number of people actually coming to Dubai, that's what the figures I compared to 07 to 08 to 09 [show]. I've really seen a drop in UK nationalities, German nationalities, US nationalities and GCC nationalities.

Fawzi: It's all against us - the increase of hotels, no increase of airlines, decrease of nationalities.

Does that mean that your jobs were much easier before?

Pande: It wasn't easy before; we all have a habit of saying we cruise-controlled but it wasn't easy. It was a different kind of pressure for the right business at the right time and the right price.

Marshall: Budgets were high, expectations were high, so you are right.

Mead: The challenge is the same, you are still trying to manage customers' expectations and where before you were managing the expectation with really high rates, now you're trying to manage the expectation because you're trying to gain loyalty.

Daoud: It's even more challenging because the guests we have right now are on a lower rate but we still want to show them the best that we have.

To attract guests this summer should you add value or focus on naked rate?

Mead: If your only leverage is to slice the price and to discount then you're not an incredible sales person, an incredible sales person knows the difference between selling a Rolls Royce and Ford Focus.

Should you discount dramatically because your lead-in rate is the attractor or should you really try and build in value to the overall offering, so include other items?

Daoud: If you asked this question two years ago you would say it's about naked price, if you ask it now you would add value. We have been working on the summer since last December; we knew that this day would come so this year what we are doing differently is we are working with our sister hotels Hyatt Regency and Park Hyatt Dubai on one strategy.

Marshall: The price has to be right because customers are looking for a deal, but it is about value and looking at some different ways of meeting those customer needs.

We've been putting together packages with our resort and our city hotels, because we have Fujairah and Ras al Khaimah which both need business, and we've got Al Ain as well so we've packaged that up with Abu Dhabi and made different combinations as well.

It's trying to do something different to make people want to stay.

Pande: You have got to compete with someone so rate is critical, but value-adds will never go out of fashion.

Mead: And as hoteliers that helps us too, looking to when the market increases slightly and perhaps we are in a position to be able to increase our prices. If you start slashing rates now and if sales people go out in a year's time [with higher prices], you're just going to get beaten black and blue.

It's about responding to the market. You have got to have your tools in the tool box.

For more insights from the roundtable, visit www.hoteliermiddleeast.com.

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