WITH 10 hotels scheduled to open, Golden Tulip Hotels and Resorts is extremely bullish about 2012. Speaking to TTN, Amine Moukarzel, senior vice-president and managing director for Golden tulip says: “The budget sector of hotels is indeed a key factor for our future. Our focus will also be on growth in assets conversion and brand conversion as it provides faster growth. Excerpts from an interview:
Looking back, how has 2011 fared for Golden Tulip Hotels & resorts?
Looking back, 2011 was definitely a cross hold for those who have believed in the Arab spring and into the way forward maintaining their values with the synergy that our hotel company provided our hotels to perform better, we capitalised on maintaining such fundamental to move forward as we are affected in those countries that we have seen some hostile moments, but recovery was fast which helps the second part of the year move forward and boosted some countries expenses and earnings on others.
What were the biggest challenges last year?
Last year the challenges were related to safety of our people working in hotels, the safety of our customers and the acceptance of the staff to the logistics related to such revolutionary aspect affecting the business and the day to day relationship to each other whether in Tunis, Egypt, Bahrain, to name a few. Having been used to crisis management or to safety we applied certain programmes where we had placed employees in other countries to monitor yet to reduce expenses to support hotels suffering and to maintain profitability to owners and ensure not to dismiss any of our staff.
How did occupancy and RevPar fare across your properties in the Middle East?
Occupancy and rates have seen a strong pressure in all countries, but we had a recovery in the summer and during the season, indeed the Arab Spring had a negative impact on RevPar in those countries, we have compensated by improving on packages and offering better amenities and freebies to recoup some of the losses.
What will be the key focus for 2012?
You cannot always put a key focus for 2012, whether it is developing, planning, operating - the industry is very wide whether tourism, hospitality or both combined. The hospitality industry is very fragile as customers, travellers, guests would always seek safety, protection and the same for businessmen, as such all aspects are important to have and yet as have seen the Formula One cancellation in 2011, we believe it will happen in 2012 and what greater than to have Manama as the Arab cultural Capital city of the Arab World.
Moreover we believe that planning event celebrations provide a rebounding platform for tourism, and contributes to a recovery scale which help hotels perform better and destinations become more popular, as such we believe that the positive aspects are attributed to conversions is stronger leisure and Mice sectors and the consumers’ confidence becoming more positive, that what the Arab Spring had an adverse impact on tourism earnings, moreover we believe that domestic and region travel within the Mena region compensate any degrees in the International tourism to the region.
This focus on expansion and growth remain our motive as a strong brand capitalizing on relationship networking and close to owners and being employer of choice. Yet our expectations are high and we remain positive that 2012 will be our improvement over its previous.
What are the new properties scheduled to open in 2012 and beyond?
We are at present schedule to open 10 hotels in 2012 having started the Golden Tulip Mahdia Palace Resort & Thalasso in Tunisia with 452 rooms complementing by the Golden Tulip Galleria Hotel in Lebanon with 176 rooms, Tulip Inn Al Qusais in the UAE, golden Tulip Al Jubail and Golden Tulip Dar Al Khalil Makkah in Saudi Arabia and later this year Golden Tulip suites Dammam and Tulip Inn Bahrain Hotel, Tulip Inn Bahrain Residences and Golden Tulip Jiyeh Marina & Spa in Lebanon, the list goes on to Doha, Algeria, Tunis and our aim is to be in every capital and every city in the Arab World reaching 100 hotels in the next three to five years under Golden Tulip and Tulip Inn Brand with adding up the Royal Tulip brand in Al Madina and Amman without mentioning the growth momentum and the plan to open 50 Campanile and Premiere Classé in the next three to five years as part of our Hospitality group.
What can guests look forward to in 2012?
A very traditional approach to have customers remains the most important in our hotels. I would say the aim is to respond to customers need and fulfil their expectations leading all the way to exceed those expectations and indeed have Feel & Enjoy the experience.
Thus realignments of service offerings, as such services are studied carefully to align with market needs, indeed the way we serve has a base but may differ from one country to another and one city to another.
In general shaping the hospitality industry are those growth diverse and challenges. The need of strong government support is very important, the opening of borders, the easements of visas, the budget airlines boom and the great inbound tourism for China and India provide such vehicle to have the challenges of today and further such challenges are complemented by continued regional political uncertainties, seasonality employees trainings and high turnover.
One of the complementary aspects of our business success in the region is the continuous support to developers and travellers habits religious needs and motives, thus our management of every hotel and hotel apartment which are becoming indeed trendy aspects of hospitality development and operation.