“It is a blessing to be operating in Abu Dhabi because since the boom in the oil sector, the government has been working on the leisure sector [and] this move [has given] us an alternative to focus on and generate extra business during the drop.”
With the upscale Grand Hyatt Abu Dhabi Hotel and Residences Emirates Pearl launching soon, Abrahams agreed that the UAE capital benefits from being a corporate hub that continues to attract a fresh and growing MICE clientele as well as new international exhibitions, while at the same time it remains one of the top cities in the world to visit.
With many upscale properties coming online, Sanjay Kumar, revenue manager, Tilal Liwa Hotel, commented, “The emirate will always be a business destination but I am very positive that these luxury hotels and resorts will just be some addition to the ever-growing luxury and leisure destinations in the UAE which will give us a good position in the market.”
Demitry agreed that while Abu Dhabi’s hospitality sector has temporarily seen an increased interest from the leisure market, the business segment is not limited to the oil industry since the emirate attracts many educational and entertainment events which can secure a new wave of arrivals into the emirate.
“Seasonal events [draw] a special sporadic clientele that choose to stay in a hotel based on availability and nothing else,” he analysed.
The great importance of the events sector is palpable when taking into consideration that Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company (ADNEC)’s impact on the emirate’s economy in 2015 surged 26 percent year-on-year to AED3.47 billion (USD945 million) as a result of a 13 percent growth in the number of events hosted by Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre and Al Ain Convention Centre.
These happenings attracted 1.8 million visitors from across the world in 2015, explained Humaid Matar Al Dhaheri, acting group CEO, ADNEC, who also revealed that the company contributed to the high occupancy levels of hotels in the UAE delivering a total of 522,000 guest nights; 420,000 of which were recorded in Abu Dhabi alone.
As Thomas Guss, general manager, Shangri-La and Traders Hotels, Qaryat Al Beri, Abu Dhabi, said, this is significant given that corporate visitors are leisure travellers too and they will hopefully have some down time to enjoy the entertainment choices either as tourists or part of team-building activities.
“Depending on the time of year, we have a different split of guest types [...]. This allows us to balance the business needs as different guest profiles visit at different times of the year.
With our corporate visitors, oftentimes we receive meeting and event bookings to support their business strategies.
This spills across our dining portfolio for business dinners to network amongst travelling groups.
The leisure guests spend more time at the pool, on the beach and in the spa, shifting our guest spend in different areas,” posited Guss, stressing the interconnectedness of the two segments.
