Dubai’s Great Hospitality Brings it to the Top

A lot of excitement is being created in the Dubai tourism industry since the news of Dubai out passing Singapore, New York and Paris by 2017 has come to surface. There was no doubt in this anyway, since great planning has gone into the designing of Dubai as a tourist attraction hub and attracting such traffic has been foreseeable. Dubai has great structure and buildings like the magnanimous Burj Al Arab which is the world’s only 7 star hotel and designed to resemble a billowing sail and has a height of 321 meters, then there is the Burj Khalifa which is the world’s tallest tower and the world’s highest viewing platform.

Dubai is filled with activities for groups of all ages and backgrounds, which attracts visitors from all over to come and indulge in the exuberant and lavish leisure choices. Dubai has fantastic and breathe taking tourist attractions like; The Atlantis Hotel, which is a royal experience within itself and a feast for the tourist’s eye. Then there is the Global Village which has been providing cultural experience as well as other touristic attractions, like shopping, superb food choices, handicrafts etc. It also has rides and entertainments for children, hence catering to everyone.

Along with this Dubai has fantastic outdoors and recreational attractions as well, from the Wild Wadi, which is Located in front of the Burj Al Arab, Wild Wadi offers 30 rides and attractions for all the family. It’s a great get away in the summer especially where children as well as adults can enjoy the water and mind blowing rides that are filled with adventure and excitement. Dubai also has great activities like the Ski Dubai which is the first indoor ski resort in the Middle East and offers an amazing snow setting to enjoy skiing, snowboarding and tobogganing. The fabulous Dubai Marina is the largest man-made marina in the world and is home to super yachts and also Dubai Marina Mall.

These are just some of the highlights of Dubai’s unlimited attractions, along with its night life and diverse cultural mix that attracts people to Dubai. All these factors have led to Dubai being one of the highest and top rated cities to visit and will soon beat Singapore and Paris in the top global destination cities in 2017.

A report by master card has shown that the number of visitors to Dubai, have increased from the previous year and are supposed to grow by 10.9 percent this year to a total of 9.89 people. The Master card report stated that “If all top 10 destination cities maintain their current rates of growth in the next few years, then by 2016 Istanbul will surpass Singapore, New York and Paris in terms of international visitor arrivals; and Dubai will similarly surpass Singapore and New York in 2016 and Paris in 2017.”

With this we can analyze that the city of Dubai is on the right track and is meeting its goals exceedingly well! Anyone who goes to Dubai will find just what their looking for, from amazing hotels, like the Atlantis and many five star hotels with exceptional service, which is personalized and highly competitive. They will find out door activities that have been catered to amaze and surprise everyone’s imagination and expectations. Dubai definitely over promises as well as over delivers, which is a clear picture of high standards of pleasing its citizens and visitors who are its real customers. Never ending entertainment, leisure activities, high class living standards and unlimited facilities with great service make Dubai what it is, Irresistible!

Dubai international airport claimed that traffic of visitors flying in to Dubai has expanded to 18.7 percent in April from the previous year and has been maintaining a 5 million a month since the last five months. The report also stated the facts that “Cross-border spending by international visitors in Dubai is estimated to be over three times higher than second-ranked Riyadh, 3.7 times higher than third-ranked Beirut, almost four times higher than the fourth-ranked Johannesburg, and is over six times higher than the sixth-ranked Abu Dhabi”.

“Middle East and Africa top ten destination cities by international overnight visitors.”

This above graphs shows the data derived from the master card report, which clearly shows that Dubai has clearly maintained its number one rank, by having a total of 9.9 million visitors travelling to in one night and also has a great amount of difference between the other cities, and has double international arrival number in comparison to Riyadh which is second at 5.0 million, almost a half of Dubai.

“Middle East and Africa Top 10 Destination Cities by International Overnight Visitor Spend”

This clearly shows that Dubai is on a high edge as far as the rest of the Middle East cities are concerned and is attracting the most visitors to spend on their travel. Dubai is reaching a high number of 10.4 billion, with Riyadh at a 3.4 billion and Beirut following at 2.8 billion. Another distinction can be made for Beirut which isn’t on the list for top ten travelers flying into a city, but is on the list for spending, this is explained through their ability to attract visitors that are big spenders.

A great deal of credit goes to the hospitality industry of Dubai that is catering to everyone’s interests and maintains such high offerings of customer service and customer experience.

Dubai’s hospitality Industry plays a pivotal role

Hotels, restaurants and malls are also great contributors to this proliferated visitor growth in Dubai in the last few years. Grand hotels like the Atlantis, Burj Al Arab and similar luxury hotels are an exciting pull for travelers because they deliver unbelievable satisfactory service. Hotels play a very big role in attracting tourists to the Middle East, especially Dubai which is known for its grand hotels and customer service that it provides, inviting people to travel all over and have a taste of this luxury experience.

Small scale hotels hold up to beating competition

Despite the fact that Dubai has many hotels that are highly expensive and cater to a niche, small scale hotels can achieve high customer turn over as well if they follow some of the basic and essential rules of providing outclass service.

Important rules that can change your hotel service from a mediocre to a royal one.

• Training of staff

The baseline of providing high end service is definitely the staff of that organization. It is impossible to achieve any kind of success without having highly skilled and trained staff that knows how to deal with all kinds of clients and delivering exceptionally high service and creating the ‘wow’ factor.

The staff first must go through a rigorous training design that should be standardized and used as a basic training format. Staff should be taught how to provide warm greetings to the guests and be able to converse with confidence and respect. A lot of time high end organizations providing great service, suffer because of their staff being rude or inattentive to the needs of the consumer who feels left out and ignored, hence turning away from organization. So we recommend that staff must be trained to handle clients with great attention and focus on detail and minute things.

Secondly the staff should be trained on self-grooming, which includes the dressing, carrying themselves and delivering their service in a smooth and natural manner. After the staff has been trained on basic procedures, detailed and specific trainings and workshops must take place so the staff can become experts with delivering service. Also the team should be sent to expert training workshops so they can have broader horizons and understanding of providing personal luxurious service.

• Personalized service

The first question that we recommend to ask your training staff is how they think they can provide personalized customer service? Hotel staff must understand that in a services industry a customer is constantly gauging and observing the service and usually comparing it with the price they have paid. Hence to provide exceptional service, it is necessary that it should be personalized, so the customer feels pampered, valued and important. In order to be able to achieve this, one needs to be aware of and understand the needs and preferences of their customers and be able to personalize the service being delivered to meet or exceed those expectations. This is the pivotal point, where a business can change a customer into an intensely loyal client.

This can be achieved through multiple ways, for example referring to the client using their name, interacting with them on a personal level and asking questions and preference that can help improve their stay at the hotel. Designing their experience in accordance with their reason on visit, for example, business, honey moon or a family get away.

For example, luxurious hotels like the Burj Al Arab, even write the names of their guests on the bath robes as well as provide pillow menus for the preference of the their guest. Now such service can create intensely loyal customers, who feel revered and valued through this service.

An extremely satisfied and contend customer revered the hotels personalized services by saying that:
“There is always that goes a little bit wrong when you stay in most five star hotels…I mean, seldom do you get that seamless experience, from the bellman when you arrive to the bellman when you depart. At the Burj Al Arab this was the case however. Greeted by name on arrival by three different members of staff, check-in in the room without a fuzz, complimentary fruit and wine on the table, a nice and informative welcome letter from the GM, an attentive butler bringing fresh fruit cocktails…really! Anyway, it all starts on the ground floor in opulent cruise ship like architecture rising to the skies, the finest bling surrounds one going to the elevators, the suites at the Burj (as friends of the hotel lovingly call the property) are spectacular, two storey, arabian Alice in Wonderland meets Versace splendour…extremely well appointed and extremely clean!Room service or private dining, absolutely seven star, housekeeping and amenities luxurious, walk in closet space ample, bathroom arabian / roman, bedroom spacious and secretly sexy! Alas, well worth a couple of nights!”

• Post sale services

Post sale services are usually not given as much attention as they deserve and are sometimes ignored. For the client to not being able to get the same attention that he gets when using the service, makes it seem like the organization was using the client till the client was paying. This leads to the loss of the client for future occasions and leaves him/her disappointed from the service. Staff must be trained to cater to any problems the staff has had post sales, like maybe losing a precious item, or problems in check out or even listening to them if they have been dissatisfied with the customer.

Now day’s companies also use the social media to engage with customers and try to make them feel important and valued even after they have used the service of the business. For example an unhappy customer of Four Seasons, Maldives wrote on an online trip review website stating that
“We stay one week in this hotel and we sufer because the food is terrible,only the bufett in tuesday night was good but expensive,but the others days was terrible,the blue restaurant is no good ,the room service is terrible…we have to return many disches because was no well prepare….is so sad because is a beautiful hotel but no god food at all.”

“MartinCody, Resort Manager at Four Seasons Resort Maldives at Landaa Giraavaru, responded to this review within a day , apologizing that
Dear Martha M,

Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback with us following your stay last November. It was a pleasure having the opportunity to meet you while you were on the island to discuss your thoughts on the quality of food at the Resort. We regret to hear that your dining experience has not lived up to your expectations and extend our sincere apologies.

As I mentioned to you back then, our new Executive Chef was due to arrive in December which duly happened. Chef Stephane has now been on board for over 5 months and from reviewing the comments on Trip Advisor since his arrival, our guests seem very pleased with the food at the Resort. We have received some excellent feedback and continue as always to improve on what we offer.

I do hope we will have the opportunity to welcome you back to the Maldives again; to either Landaa Giraavaru or our sister property Kuda Huraa where you seemed to have a wonderful stay. Please do not hesitate to contact me on +960 66 00 888 or email: martin.cody@fourseasons.com should your plans bring you back as I would be delighted to assist with the details of your stay.

With best wishes,

Martin Cody”

This shows great commitment and sincerity in catering and serving the needs of the customers, even after they have used the service. This shows the client that they are important and their opinions matter. The manager very humbly accepted their fault, but also took out the time to inform the customer of how they will not find this problem because of their new chef has been hired, hence inviting them for another visit.

It is predicted that Dubai will soon be the top destination in the world for tourists to travel to and indulge in its vibrant and diverse offerings. The hotel industry will naturally see a boom with that and now is the right time for them to start improving and training their staff for exceptional service so they can beat each other to gaining loyal customers and increased profits.