THE Grand Hyatt Muscat sits on the sandy beach of Shatti Al Qurm, overlooking the azure waters of the Gulf of Oman and yet is right in the heart of the city. The hotel offers excellent meeting and event facilities which will be showcased at this year’s edition of World Travel Market. Ahead of the show, TTN caught up with general manager Christoph K. Franzen, to speak about the property and what’s in store.
How has business fared at the hotel this year?
Considering the socio-political issues in the region business levels have remained positive.
How much of your business is driven by the GCC market?
The GCC continues to be an important market for inbound corporate business and short leisure breaks. This trend looks set to continue in the year ahead.
Coming out of these troubled times, how much was RevPar affected? Are you seeing a healthy bounce back now?
Muscat in general was not affected as much as other regions in the Middle East, we have been fortunate as Oman was never as exposed financially to other hubs and the impact was (contained) very, very limited. The RevPar has not suffered at all in our case. The recovery in terms of business levels was swift and we are seeing a steady increase in RevPar year -on -year.
Who are the key source markets for Grand Hyatt Muscat? Are there plans to tap into new markets?
Aside from the domestic corporate and government sectors the GCC remains a vital market feeder for inbound corporate and leisure breaks. We continue to grow our established UK, German and central European markets offering a diversified range of leisure and cultural packages for short getaways to extend stay vacation options. We will pledge our full support to Oman Ministry of Tourism (MoT) and the national airline Oman Air as valued partners to tactically attract inbound business from Russia, Zurich and a number of other new routes to be rolled out during 2011/12.
What are your expectations looking ahead?
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We have witnessed keen interest from emerging markets such as Russia and an increase in the types of leisure packages on offer from established inbound sectors such as Germany and the UK. Due to the economic climate in Europe we are expecting business levels to remain steady in the year ahead. Working closely with the Oman Ministry of Tourism who continue to robustly promote Oman as a premier destination, we are optimistic about inbound business developing from emerging markets such as Russia in the near future.
As the national airline Oman Air have rolled out new routes this year Zanzibar, Moscow and Zurich we are expecting to see an increase in business and leisure tourism from these destinations.
The MoT had announced plans for over 1,400 new hotel rooms across Oman in the near future. In your opinion is the country positioned to meet this supply?
The country does need more hotel rooms, but we have to ensure the supply is balanced between leisure and business hotels and also across the different categories (five, four and three-star).
What will be the biggest challenge?
Destination awareness, but the MoT is doing a splendid job and has a strategy in place to ensure everyone hears about this beautiful and exotic destination.
What can guests look forward to at the hotel in 2012? Have guest expectations at the hotel increased in recent years?
Guest expectations tend not to decrease- but only in increase. We have heavily focused on training and service delivery, like most hotels in the region, but we also started upgrading our facilities and are constantly rolling out new F&B promotions to also ensure we attract the Muscat residents into the hotel.
The Grand Hyatt Muscat had improved staff working conditions earlier this year. What changes were made and how were they implemented without affecting operations?
We have been very pro-active in our approach and have gone to the staff before they came to us. We are one of the very few hotels that already had a general affairs officer and a union-like structure in place for several years; this made communicating easier. But the most important aspect was that half of our senior management team is Omani; something most other hotels do not have, and this makes it clear that we are determined to foster growth from within and in turn made it easier to communicate with our colleagues across the board. The biggest impact was the increase of the service charge for the employees and of course the introduction of the five day work week.
What are your offerings for travel agents and tour operators?
Our travel partners are vital for our success. We strive to maintain flexibility and offer innovative, first class hospitality across the board to meet guest’s expectations at every level. We are developing bespoke packages and attractive promotions to drive business to Oman as a destination and ultimately the Grand Hyatt Muscat. We now provide golf, cultural and residential packages to cater to every sector of the market. Our varied options with short and extended stay for leisure and our creative new approach to the meetings and corporate segments ensures we are the hotel of choice for our travel partners.