Arabian Park Hotel Dubai reports a record year end figure of 85 per cent occupancy to coincide with the hotel’s second anniversary at the end of this month.
The Wafi owned and managed hotel was introduced to the market as the group’s first quality three star hotel.
“Our initial studies two years ago showed us there was an enormous opportunity for a good mid market hotel. Nevertheless setting up a three star hotel required quite a leap of faith, although I’m pleased to say the figures have repaid that confidence,” commented Mark Lee, general manager of Arabian Park Hotel.
“From an operational point of view we have experienced a fantastic number of repeat guests. Our current record for the number of stays stands at 17! This is a great testament to the overall value for money offered by Arabian Park Hotel, and it also represents the consistently high levels of personalised service given by our team of 170 employees, from over 18 different countries.”
“From a sales point of view we have been working extremely hard to expand our network of local and international travel agents and corporates. We have attended many international trade exhibitions and road shows in conjunction with the DTCM, and our travels have taken us to the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Turkey, Australia, Singapore, China, Indonesia and India. We are also planning future trips to the US and South America.”
Arabian Park Hotel will be at ATM on the DTCM stand.
The hotel has also enjoyed a year on year sales increase of 50 per cent, compared to the last year’s results. This can be attributed to an increase in occupancy (which, at 26 per cent, attributes to just over half the increase) and improved yield management that focuses on ideal selling practises.
“The importance of the improved yield management cannot be emphasised enough as our average room rate (ARR) year on year has only increased in line with inflation at approximately nine per cent and we are therefore still maintaining our competiveness and value for money in terms of attractive rates,” said Irena Nikolova, director of sales and marketing of Arabian Park Hotel.
“We also changed our GDS provider to ‘Travelclick’ in the summer of last year, and we have seen the benefits in the increased production via GDS/IDS channels at a higher rate. During some months we noticed that the number of bookings had doubled compared to previous years.”
“We set ourselves tough targets for the year, and have successfully managed to not only meet, but exceed them. We have also managed to exceed the past two years’ challenging sales and net profit budget targets, which is a very big achievement for us,” said Nikolova.
Over the past year, Arabian Park Hotel has also made many aesthetic changes to the hotel such as adding separate entrances to the superior balcony rooms. The hotel also plans to extend the lobby area, and would like to extend the balcony area of the Brasserie terrace in order to enable year round use of the terrace and to increase the covers of the restaurant by 20 per cent.
“Our plan for the year ahead is to maintain relationships with key partners in the market to further increase our occupancies, and to continue providing excellent service and value for money to all our guests. We also recently introduced a staff recognition programme, to encourage active learning within the hotel, and to retain our valuable employees. Our aim is to create a challenging and fun working environment for all our employees,” concluded Lee.