JUMEIRAH kick-started the year with the grand opening of the Jumeirah Zabeel Saray on The Palm Jumeirah in Dubai, UAE. This year, the group also makes its foray into Abu Dhabi with the Jumeirah Etihad Towers and in Kuwait with Jumeirah Messilah Beach. The two properties will be the first among many signed agreements with developers in the Middle East. Further plans include another luxury hotel in Dubai in 2011 and further hotels and resorts in Al Ain (UAE), Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan, Egypt and Syria, all scheduled to open in the next three to four years.
“We continue to see a robust demand for luxury hotels in the region and have a strong pipeline of new developments to fulfill that demand at the top end of the luxury market,” says a Jumeirah spokesperson. “As the year rolls on, Jumeirah will open the Jumeirah Vitavelli and Jumeirah Dhevanafushi in the Maldives, Jumeirah Frankfurt in Germany, the Himalayas Hotel Shanghai and the Bilgah Hotel in Baku.”
The group announced a robust improvement in occupancy levels over 2009 especially in the beachside properties. With DTCM posting an 18 per cent increase in tourist nights into Dubai and this has continued to show improvement across the board; Jumeirah sees confidence returning to the Dubai market. Their biggest growth has come from the Asian markets as well as from the GCC market – two key markets for the company. The group’s commitment to the Asian markets, was further reinforced when it announced the expansion of its global representation network into India with OM Tourism. The agreement recognises India as a key growth region for business to Jumeirah’s properties worldwide and is further validation of the brand’s global appeal.
Jumeirah Group reaffirms its growth strategy of having 60 hotels signed up by 2012. The company also feels confident that it will have 30 hotels open in 2013. A key element of the growth strategy has been the development of a second brand – Venu Hotels, to complement the strengths of the Jumeirah brand. Venu will be a contemporary lifestyle hotel brand and will debut in Shanghai when the Jumeirah opens the Venu Himalayas Hotel Shanghai in the heart of Pudong district of Shanghai in 2011. There are further plans to launch Venu branded hotels in the Middle East, Northern Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia-Pacific.
The Venu brand is expected to fulfil a market need that is highly complementary to the Jumeirah Hotels and Resorts brand.
Value is a key aspect at Jumeirah, the spokesperson further said. “In the luxury end of the market we are seeing what has been described elsewhere a ‘shift from value to values’. In other words, guests are moving from the celebration of luxury for its own sake to an engagement in enriching and meaningful travel experiences. At Jumeirah, we embrace this trend through our sponsorship of arts programmes, through the development of tailored destination experiences and through our loyalty programme, Sirius.
“At the same time, as social media channels mature and online distribution channels become more accessible, consumers of luxury travel are becoming better informed and more demanding. This is clearly an opportunity for luxury operators to embrace the channel and use it constructively to build awareness of their brand and particularly the relevance of their brand to communities they serve.”