ABU DHABI — With the improvement in the economic indicators, the UAE’s hotel industry has done ‘good’ business in the first quarter of the year led by Dubai, on the back of the Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibition or MICE activity that has contributed to the strong room occupancy, top officials said.

“The room occupancy in Dubai was third highest in the world in the month of January, as a sign of improvement in the business activities”, said Khalid Ahmed Al Sulayem, the Director General of Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Gulf, Incentives, Business, Travel and Meeting Exhibition or GIBTM that was inaugurated on Monday, he said the first quarter of the year was ‘good’.

About the room rents fluctuation in the wake of financial crisis and slow arrivals, he said room rents with an average of $250 per day, coupled with a highest occupancy rate was a strong indicator of the market sentiments.

The city-emirate attracted over 7.5 million visitors in 2009, which was a year of economic slowdown world-wide.

The director general said that resolution to the Dubai World’s debt restructuring would further impact positively on the business sentiments in the emirate, beaming strong signals across the world.

In the last year, the director general said 4000-new room capacity was added to Dubai’s burgeoning hotel industry that expanded to 43,000 rooms, an addition of about 20 per cent comparing with 2008. He expected a huge inventory of 20,000 rooms was in the pipe line this year.

Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi is expecting a handsome growth of ten per cent in its MICE related business activities this year, said Mubarak Rashid Al Nuaimi, International Promotions Manager at Abu Dhabi Tourism Development Authority.

Abu Dhabi is satisfied with the expansion of its MICE activities in the year 2009, he said as it is providing maximum incentives to private sector to market Abu Dhabi. This year, he said Abu Dhabi will bring three more MICE events to the city to take the tally to 20 events, to boosting the hospitality industry.

In spite of a strong built-up of the room inventory in the emirate, the situation is improving, said Kamal Fakhoury, the Director of Operations at Cristal Hotel in the capital.

Fakhoury said that Island capital’s hotel industry saw a huge expansion last year when about ten 4- star and 5-star properties entered the market with over 4000-rooms, during a period marred by economic slowdown. The number was quite significant as the market already had 12000-13000 rooms, the Director Operations said. “Now this inventory will go up further this year to hit over 20,000 rooms,” Fakhoury said, who recently launched Cristal Hotel in the capital.

The hotelier expects a tough competition ahead in the year for vying business in Abu Dhabi, a market that catered to corporate business segment, with the arrival of 3000-4000 rooms that would be launched between summer and winter. The supply will certainly affect the average room rents by up to 10 per cent, he suggested.   Sales Opportunities Manager of Etihad Airways, the UAE’s national airlines, David Granville said that the airlines had made Abu Dhabi, a truly transit destination with the launch of non-stop flight to Tokyo. 
—haseeb@khaleejtimes.com

Weeks of training and audits have resulted in ‘Menu-Safe’ HACCP certification for Dubai’s Arabian Park Hotel, the first three-star hotel in the Middle East to do so.

The hotel, which is managed by the Wafi Group, successfully implemented HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) standards into their food preparation which will safeguard against food safety hazards.

HACCP is an exacting prevention system with key actions in place called Critical Control Points, or CCP, designed to decrease or eliminate physical, chemical and biological hazards in the preparation of the food, but does not focus on the finished product.

Mark Lee, Arabian Park Hotel’s general manager, acknowledged that the “achievement reinforces our objective of being market leaders within the mid-market hotel segment, not only within the UAE, but also within the Middle East,” while adding the “Chef de Cuisine Girish Babu and his team have worked extremely hard.”

Dubai Municipality-approved Menu-Safe worked with the management of the Arabian Park Hotel to help acquire the HACCP certification.

This included 10 weeks of kitchen staff training and personal audits to result in the prevention of food safety hazards in all aspects of food preparation and production.

The Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM) held a meeting with select representatives of Dubai hotels on Tuesday as part of its continuous efforts to take stock of the current tourism industry developments and discuss various initiatives to boost visitors’ number to the emirate and hotel occupancies.

Khalid A bin Sulayem (3rd from left) chaired the Hotel Group meeting held on April 6- 2010.

The meeting, chaired by DTCM Director General, Mr. Khalid A bin Sulayem, was attended by senior officials of the department in addition to top management representatives of hotel establishments in the emirate.

During the meeting, held at Novotel Hotel at Dubai World Trade Centre, the participants discussed issues concerning the tourism industry in general and the hotel sector in particular.

The meeting discussed the new marketing plans to be implemented by the department during this year and the latest developments in the global tourism industry and new projects in the emirate.

A presentation was made to the participants about the performance of tourism industry in Dubai and a report prepared by Smith Travel Research (STR), a London-based independent international tourism research institution.

The STR report revealed that Dubai ranked first in the world for the average room rate (ARR) in the month of February 2010 with hotel average room being $252. It held the same status in the previous three months previous with the average room rate being $250 in January, December 2009 $235 and $236 in November 2009.

Tokyo was placed second in the month of February at $242 and got the same position in January at $250, while Paris was placed in the third place during the months of February and January at $211 and $212, respectively.

In terms of average revenue per available room (RevPAR) category also, the report said Dubai is ranked first as the average revenue was $199, followed by Tokyo with $170, Hong Kong with $146, Sydney ($140) and Paris ($137).

In terms of average hotel occupancy rates during the month of February, Dubai occupied the second place with 79% with average hotel average room being $252, next only to Sydney with 85.2% with $164 average room rate, while Hong Kong, London, Tokyo, New York and Cairo were placed on the list from third to eighth positions.

Mr. bin Sulayem praised members of the hotel group for the achievements made by Dubai tourism industry, which have been made possible due to the marketing and promotional campaigns carried out by the department in collaboration with the tourism sector in the emirate.

The Dubai municipality, in a significant move, has ordered all the hotels and food establishments in the city to stop selling dishes containing alcohol, said a report.

The municipality had last week sent a circular to the food establishments across Dubai in this connection, the National reported. As per the circular, alcohol will no longer be an ingredient in dishes served in Dubai’s restaurants, the report added.

Those violating the ban will face fines of Dh5,000 ($1,360) to Dh20,000, a municipality official was quoted as saying.

The circular also called upon the outlets serving alcoholic drinks to keep them separate from food products during storage, preparation and display.

However, managers at restaurants and hotels were ’shocked’ at the new order, which they said could damage business.

Leading hoteliers said the ban is going to have a big affect on the food industry since most of the items such as steak-and-ale pie, sushi and teriyaki are made with alcohol apart from some sauces, cakes and chocolates.

Some chefs pointed out that the ban will hit their menus and argued that ‘it will change the taste of food in Dubai’s hotels.’

However, the municipality officials said the circular was partially the result of complaints from customers.

“There have been a lot of violations, with hotels often hiding content of alcohol in food from customers,” said Ahmed al Ali, the head of food inspections at the municipality.

“This is a Muslim society and visitors to our hotels are our guests. It is important to ensure they are informed about everything,” he was quoted as saying.

Though Municipality officials said an inital grace period will be permitted, some hotels have begun removing the ‘alchohol dishes’ from their menus.

DUBAI — Hotels in Dubai bucked a severe downturn in the Middle East hospitality sector with an occupancy of 79 per cent and a revenue per available room of $199.14 — highest regional scores recorded for the first two months of 2010 — Deloitte, a leading global consultancy and auditing firm, said on Tuesday.

In contrast, Abu Dhabi hotels recorded a sharp decline in occupancy as well as in revenue per available room (RevPAR) even as hotel occupancies across the Middle East region slumped by 25.7 per cent to 59.9 per cent during the period year-to-date February 2010.

RevPAR in the Middle East also slipped to $131.42 from $151.51 during the first two months, Deloitte said in its latest analysis of selected STR Global hotel performance data for the Middle East for the period year-to-date February 2010.

Overall, Dubai hotels posted an 11.5 per cent surge in occupancy rate this year compared to the same 2009 period “owing to Dubai’s promotional strategies,” Deloitte said.

However, Dubai’s RevPAR for the two months showed a drop compared to $204.55 in the corresponding period in 2009, as most hotels slashed room rates to lure holidaymakers.

According to industry watchers, Dubai room rates have been reduced by as much as 40 per cent by some operators to keep up occupancy. “If January-February could be so high, occupancy in March is expected to be even higher,” a hotel industry source said.

Dubai hotels’ two-month combined occupancy is better compared to January when the emirate’s hotels posted 72.1 per cent, up from 67.9 per cent during the previous yea while RevPAR was just $180.09.

“The upswing signals a recovery of Dubai’s hotel sector, and we expect the high rates to sustain till April,” a leading tour operator said.

Occupancy in Abu Dhabi hotels declined to 55.7 per cent during the first two months from 81.4 per cent in the corresponding 2009 period while RevPAR plummeted more than 50 per cent to $142.47 from $300.60 during the same 2009 period, Deloitte said in its analysis of selected STR Global hotel performance data for the Middle East for the period year-to-date February 2010.

Abu Dhabi hotels recorded a sharp decline in occupancy to 55.7 per cent during the first two months of this year compared to 81.4 per cent in the corresponding 2009 period. In January, Abu Dhabi occupancy rates fell to 56.5 per cent, representing a decline of 27.1 per cent from 77.5 per cent during January 2009.

The capital city also saw its RevPAR dropping by 40.5 per cent in January 2010 to $208.7 compared to the same period in 2009.

Overall, in 2009, the UAE performed well, with Abu Dhabi securing the Middle East’s highest average room rates at $285, $50 higher than in Dubai. RevPAR in the capital was also the highest in the region at $201, while occupancy levelled out at 70.6 per cent in 2009.

In 2009, hotels in the Middle East netted the highest occupancy, room rates and revPAR in the world in 2009 in comparison with the rest of the world.

A worldwide review of hotel data by STR Global shows room occupancy in the region hit 61.3 percent for the year, while the average room rate stood at $202.

“Hoteliers in the Middle East continue to be global leaders, achieving levels of revPAR that other regions could only dream about,” according to Alex Kyriadkidis of consulting firm Deloitte.

The amount of new room supply that entered the Middle East in 2009 intensified drops in occupancy, and put downward pressure on average room rates. “The region now only lags behind Asia Pacific and Europe in terms of the recovery of demand,” he said.

• issacjohn@khaleejtimes.com