AL DIAR SIJI Hotel, a five-star business hotel in Fujairah has successfully upgraded its ISO 9001:2000 certification to the latest ISO 9001:2008, a restatement of the hotel's efficiency with its management systems.
The property, managed by Abu Dhabi National Hotels (ADNH) under its Al Diar Hotels division, was first awarded this international certification in 2005.
'Getting the first ISO 9001:2000 certificate was definitely much more difficult than the upgrade to ISO 9001:2008. It also took us longer, more than five months to establish and implement the procedures to comply to international standards the first time.'
'The upgrade was implemented faster because we are used to the standards required in the first certification. It has been very rewarding to get ISO certified. This is a proof of the hotel's efficiency with regard to its management systems which inevitably results in better and improved products and services to our guests,' explained Fouad Melhem, the hotel's general manager who also heads Siji Hotel Apartments.
ISO 9000 is a family of standards for quality managements system. It is maintained by the International Organisation for Standardisation and requires well defined and documented procedures resulting in improved consistency of output, or better service and product quality brought about by better management control.
Among the training conducted for the upgrade is a three-day course for new in-house auditors carried out by Incon Consultancy, an ISO accredited certification body.
Aside from ISO 9001:2008, Al Diar Siji Hotel also holds HACCP (Hazard Analysis & Control Point System) certification, one of the most sought-after accreditations in the food service industry, which was awarded in 2008.
'The ISO and HACCP are proof of our commitment to providing world-class standards and excellent service and products. We are proud to be among the first five-star hotels in the UAE and GCC to be both ISO and HACCP compliant,' added Melhem.