< Previoushoteliermiddleeast.com October 2022 20 An open door Radisson’s Rushali Mahesh is on a mission to make HR fun, personalised and approachable At the end of August, 24-year-old Rushali Mahesh found herself in the spotlight. An intern just three years ago and a fresh graduate two years ago, Mahesh was featured extensively online after being promoted to cluster manager of training, welfare and accommodation at Radisson Hotel Group. Here, Mahesh tells us about her mission to be exceptional every day, plans to make her department more approachable and about her dream to become the voice of HR in hospitality. WELCOMED TO DUBAI In 2019, Mahesh left India for an internship with Radisson, at that time working across departments but quickly proving an af nity for human resources. Re ecting on the internship experience, she shares: “I had so much fun during that process, I was never watching the clock for when I could go home. It felt like a fun activity more than work. Once my internship ended, I had to go back home during the pandemic so my career went on pause for a moment. In July 2020 I was offered a role by Radisson, so that’s when my career began as an HR coordinator. “In my internship, I was in a team of seven, but as an HR coordinator, I was by myself. It was a total change for me. It went from having constant guidance to guring out things on my own and only asking for help when I truly needed it.” HOTELIER AT HEART Mahesh got her rst taste of hospitality from a young age, and ‘caught the bug’. She IN CONVERSATION explains: “My mum was in the industry, so when there was no one to take care of us at home, she would take me along to her work. I was exposed to the hotel industry early on and saw just how friendly everyone was. In hospitality, people take care of you even when they don’t have to. “I love hearing the stories of different people, I love hearing how people from completely different walks of life can all end up in the same place.” While the hotel management graduate fondly recognises herself as a people person, she’s also a self-confessed introvert. While she is nervous as our interview starts, she soon opens up when talking about what she loves: Helping people. “I am drawn towards working with the people who facilitate the guest experience,” she says. “I don’t face guests in my role but I face the people who do. I serve the people who serve the guest. What truly excites me is developing the people who excel at giving good service. If I’m being honest, Radisson pushes me to be extroverted at work. At work, I feel like a totally different person.” FINDING A FAMILY As a manager within the human resources department at Park Inn by Radisson Dubai Motor City and Radisson Blu Hotel Dubai Media City, her approach to the role is one instilled in her by her mentors: To create a sense of family. Mahesh re ects: “I have to give credit to my director of HR, Roni Masri, and my GM, James Berry. Roni and James have been extremely supportive. They believed I could be a leader one day. Roni had no obligation to do anything, but he would personally spend 10 minutes with me a day to help develop my leadership skills. He wanted to help me grow, he motivated me when I didn’t believe in myself. “James really trusted me, as well. My work family cheers me on, more so than my closest friends at times.” REINVENTING HR Now that she’s a manager and has a platform to enact meaningful change in her department, Mahesh is looking to apply the same approach Masri and Berry showed to her. “Roni always told me: “I am here to support you,” but that’s it. I was always pushed to make my own decisions and trust my own decisions.” She continues: “Having fun is key at Radisson and I take that seriously in my role. I introduced a shout-out board, as an example. Just so if one staff has announced another going the extra mile, they have a place to celebrate that for all to see. “HR is always seen as a paper-pushing department that pays salaries and lls in forms. I’m here to change that. HR is a department of building relationships, where people feel close enough to you to share experiences. HR is a place where people come to celebrate their wins, it is also a shoulder to cry on. People are usually scared of HR. If we take baby steps, I think we can change that stereotype.” PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL APPROACH Mahesh rmly believes training and In conversation 21 October 2022 hoteliermiddleeast.com development of personal skills is as crucial as professional skills. She explains: “Staff training should be about helping a person be who they want to be, not just who the organisation wants them to be. Training needs to be more personalised, as well. It doesn’t have to be how to make a bed or how to cook an omelette, but also personal skills like how to play the guitar or how to be better at public speaking.” Welfare and accommodation are one and the same for Mahesh, who says good staff accommodation is all about creating a ‘home away from home’. She adds: “Here in Dubai, a lot of people live away from their families, it’s not easy. It’s important to create that family feeling. It’s important for our staff to be happy and comfortable. It all starts at home. If the home isn’t a nice, energising place, how can they bring that energy to work? “It might sound cheesy but home is a feeling, not a place. It’s not just about providing a mattress and a pillow.” Discover more at co ee.franke.com There is nothing better than waking up with a delicious co ee after a good night’s sleep. Our fully automatic co ee machines are easy to use, even as a self-service station for your guests. They deliver consistently high in-cup quality, so your guests can enjoy the perfect co ee experience to complement their pleasant stay. Because the better the coee tastes, the more you will make your guests feel at home. when your co ee makes your guests feel at home. Discover more FRANKE_A600_Hotel_Hotelier Middle East_180x115.indd 120.09.2022 16:25:14hoteliermiddleeast.com October 2022 22 One of the eternal truths of hotel development is: Show me a city hosting a World Cup or an Olympics, and I’ll show you a more-than-healthy development pipeline. Take Qatar this year. In the second quarter, Lodging Econometrics reported that it had an all-time high project count of 66 projects or 15,168 rooms. Of those, more than half were in the luxury sector, and more than half will be in the capital, Doha. Despite this growth, it is expected that the high demand from more than a million visitors will mean many football fans staying in nearby Dubai. In total, Qatar is planning to add 105 hotels to its offering in time for the FIFA World Cup, with plans to offer something for every guest. The tournament will take place over 29 days. For Qatar as a whole, the country is expecting to generate US$20bn and is using the event as part of its 2030 vision, which echoes that deployed by Dubai as it sought to diversify away from oil as its prime revenue generator. The 2030 strategy aims to position Qatar as a ‘world-class hub with deep cultural roots’, targeting seven million annual visitors by 2030. At the other end of the tourism spectrum is Paris, one of the most popular destinations in the world. The French capital reported 9.9 million visitors this summer, 3.5 percent off 2019’s numbers. The country as a whole saw an in ux from overseas, but also record numbers of domestic stays. Paris is due to host the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Summer Games, estimating 9.7 million visitors. Where will they all stay? Airbnb is one of the headline sponsors of the event, but Paris is known for being one of the most What Qatar hotels can learn from previous World Cups Alex Sogno, CEO, Global Asset Solutions, on extending a hotel’s life beyond the event TALKING HEADS restrictive jurisdictions for the sharing platform. The International Olympics Committee has also signed an agreement with Accor, which is headquartered in Paris, which will see it offer its services in the Olympic and Media Villages as well as providing a large number of the 47,000 hotel rooms that Paris 2024 has promised the IoC. Once the event has closed, the site will become the city’s latest urban redevelopment project, becoming a new residential district with extensive leisure, commercial, community and educational facilities, all located close to a new metro station and other transport links. The city is focused on the impact of the Olympics far beyond the duration of the sporting feats, ensuring a truly sustainable impact. POST-WORLD CUP HOTEL WORLD Historically, planning your hotel’s performance around a global sporting tournament has not been a universal route to success. In Sydney, which hosted the 2000 Olympic Games, a study by Arthur Andersen’s Hospitality & Leisure Group found that hotels recorded a doubling in average room rates for September 2000 and occupancy of 100 percent. Five-star Sydney properties recorded average room rates during the Olympic period in excess of AUS$480 per room and occupancy rates of 100 percent. But it wasn’t until 15 years later that occupancy rose to 86.1 percent. Development slowed: just 3,000 hotel rooms were added in both Sydney and Melbourne between 2000 and 2016. Since then, the hotel sector has been booming, in large part due to the government negotiating more than 100 bilateral air services agreements. If you’re reading this in your freshly- polished marble reception area in Qatar, don’t be disheartened. Instead of thinking of the World Cup as the source of all your guests for the next 29 years, think of it as the best marketing you didn’t have to pay for. Many hotels still have an ‘if you build it, they will come’ attitude, which can lead to falling back on expensive OTAs to ll beds. A good asset manager, who knows your property and your market, will be able to drive a successful long- term marketing strategy that raises your pro le above the crowd during the event and then keeps past and future guests engaged and loyal. Even with rates likely to be buoyant, the focus needs to be on putting money where you will see the highest returns. The FIFA World Cup will be rich in these opportunities, which can establish a lifelong pro le for your hotel. Welcome to 29 days to build your business.Palazzo Versace hoteliermiddleeast.com October 2022 24 MR MONTHER WILL SEE YOU How Monther Darwish has taken Palazzo Hospitality to new heightsPalazzo Versace 25 October 2022 hoteliermiddleeast.com Monther Darwish’s mantra is simple: Never be afraid of trying new things. As the founder of Palazzo Versace Dubai’s managing director and founder of Palazzo Hospitality, Darwish is a force to be reckoned with. His unique approach to hospitality has allowed the property to gain monumental popularity, record revenues and millions of social media impressions over the past two years. It is clear that Darwish does not consider himself a “classic hotelier”, instead he is a “businessman in a hotel.” This, he said, gives him a different viewpoint on how to elevate his hotel business. It also means he’s brave about trying new things and lets his team’s imagination run free. While some hotels were on hiatus during the pandemic, Darwish refocused his business model and pushed his creative marketing, resulting in 90 percent occupancy rates. Palazzo Versace was so successful that the MD says he was was approached multiple times to manage other assets. That prompted him to launch Palazzo Hospitality, a group that specialises in managing luxury hotels, residential buildings and lifestyle brands by providing strategic and operational expertise, including project management, interior design, sales and marketing, recruitment and training, as well as revenue management. As the second Palazzo Hospitality- managed property enters its nal stages before opening, Darwish sat down with Hotelier Middle East to chat about thriving in 2020, auctioning staycations, introducing cryptocurrency payments, and operating a high-pro le celebrity favourite in Dubai. Darwish had a monumental task in front of him for 2020. He said: “The last two years were the most dif cult on the industry, but we took advantage of everyone staying in the country. My mission was to maintain the hotel’s level of luxury while keeping guests safe and driving results, all during a generation- altering pandemic. During the pandemic, we were thriving. We believe in ourselves. In my mind, it was a three-month pandemic, so my strategy was getting operations back to normal.” In 2020 and early 2021, he steered operations toward the domestic and staycation market. “The pandemic taught us so many things, including going away from the classic way of managing. This is what we started incorporating into our hotel. If there is any crisis, the rst thing big chains will do is cut the cost of marketing. We did the exact opposite. We invested in marketing and social media. Everyone was on their phone. We ramped up our videos and pushed our socials out. Over time we garnered over one million followers and have great engagement.” Using an extensive marketing plan on social media with local press, in uencer marketing, radio and others, Palazzo managed to hit 90 percent occupancy rates while other hotels were struggling to hit 10 percent. At the peak of summer in August 2020, as many as 2,700 people came through the hotel in a single month. Amid a hospitality job crisis, Darwish did not make any redundancies. He said: “We were in a very dif cult situation. All the huge chain hotels were closing. All the big tycoons were closing. Who are we next to them? In October 2019, we restructured and streamlined almost our entire staff and operations. I was not going to come a few months later and close to the hotel. So we kept it open.” The year 2020 taught Darwish and others at his hotel that there’s a lot of success in the staycation business. He said: “At that time no one was thinking about that that. They focused on tourism. So we created an e-gift platform to drive direct booking traf c to us and undercut the online travel agents. We saved those margins for the customer. If the rate was AED700, we made it AED500 and let the customer pocket that extra cash, as long as people were booking directly with us. “Then, right when restrictions eased, everyone was bored. No-one wanted to stay home. So we had a lot of summer deals and pushed our F&B offerings. While everyone was in town for summer 2020 and 2021, we had incredible occupancy rates.” Under Darwish’s leadership, Palazzo Versace has been a market leader throughout the pandemic and beyond. “This was our chance to speak up,” he said. “And suddenly, we were everywhere. We went from two percent during the pandemic, to 90 percent occupancy. The strategy worked. We would see hotel brands watching our Instagram stories. They had their eye on us. Although the pandemic was tough, it was our chance to really shine and show our creativity.”, REWRITING THE RULES Darwish always paid close attention to updated government rules but made sure he found a way not to interfere with the guest experience. “Although our strategy was to pretend there was no pandemic, we made sure the hotel was fully equipped with all the right hygiene requirements. We implemented a keyless entry and heat detection. All things that wouldn’t require the guests to feel like we are interfering. It was a seamless experience. When the government issued Caption here Darwish likes to mingle with guests in the Palazzo Versace lobbyPalazzo Versace hoteliermiddleeast.com October 2022 26 the ban on ordering drinks, we started selling drinks with a side of fries. We always followed the rules but interpreted them in our own way to give guests a semblance of normalcy. “What we created is different. Not having a stiff corporate brand allows us to do more and to be more creative. We make all the decisions. We decide on the rates and events. Every month we come up with a different plan to stand out. We have a dynamic strategy and a dynamic budget every month. I trust my team. I am available 24/7 to them and being that available and constantly in front of them keeps them motivated and keeps them on their toes.” Darwish was so accessible to his team that he cancelled the daily brie ng. “We always have direct contact with each other. I meet them in the lobby, the elevator. Why would they need to brief me if I know every day what is going on? Sometimes I get messages at 2am and 3am from people on my team,” he said. MANAGING MORE ASSETS Palazzo Versace is a limited edition brand, con rms Darwish. But his recently formed hospitality group Palazzo Hospitality launched as a result of the hotel’s success. He said: “We started being approached by owners and asset managers to manage their properties. We knew that if we want to push this business forward, we needed to move into hotel management. Palazzo Hospitality was then born. We launched three additional brands under our set for Myde yet, but we want to create something playful. A more personalised luxury. People associate us with a look of the Victorian era, but the design of our new hotels will be completely different. House of Versace wanted to keep it limited. We will be one of the only Palazzo Versaces in the world.” When Darwish launches his new hotel brands, he says that they will de nitely cross-sell all the properties. “We’ve tried cross-selling before. We did a tie-up with Mauritius and the Maldives. We launched twin stays and that tie-up worked very well. I never block any idea. I’ve been at this property for a long time and, I can tell you, I love to get involved in the management and develop good ideas.” One such idea has been the bidding platform, which in its rst run amassed 1,500 bids and AED2.3 million in revenue in just three days. Darwish explained: “Most of that demand came from the GCC. Most of the demand was for our packages as well, working with Mauritius. The prices for that went crazy, even the spa packages had immense demand. “We’re only introducing the bidding when we’re above 90 percent occupancy. I’ll tell you why: It gives umbrella including ‘The Appointment’ our business hotel, ‘Myde’ our lifestyle property and ‘Seotra’, our luxury property. I bought a piece of land in Zanzibar during the pandemic and now I want to build a Seotra hotel there.” Darwish con rmed that Palazzo Hospitality is in the nal stages of launching its rst property, The Appointment in Business Bay. It will be a ve-star business hotel. “We are excited about this opening. We have nothing Darwish is not considered a classic hotelier Darwish in his of cePalazzo Versace 27 October 2022 hoteliermiddleeast.com across a businessman dressed head to toe in Versace. “He told me all about cryptocurrencies and convinced me to invest some of my own money to try it out. I got a lot of return on that investment and decided to bring the hotel into it. We are very tech-savvy. People are already using crypto to pay their bills. We had a group come in and dine at Enigma and they tested out our crypto payment. We are making waves in the industry with the big brands. “We like to follow trends. It is the future. We are really future-facing. I believe in it and I started trading in it and I made money with it. And so I started involving the brand. Then I heard from someone else about NFT so soon we will start doing those as well. We started doing research for that already.” According to Darwish, Palazzo Versace is currently the only hotel with a Binance license. LOOKING AHEAD Darwish believes 2022 will be one of the hotel’s best years to date. With the FIFA World Cup, the festive season and plenty of tourists ying into Dubai, he expects a busier than ever Q4. He said: “Next month, we are hosting a huge event combining our sixth anniversary with the opening of our World Cup garden. We bought world cup tickets and are hosting a draw. They were so dif cult to nd and we invested a lot to get them. And they are some great tickets to the semi- nals and nal. There will be a big draw and packages. We tied up with FlyDubai and AirArabia to y people down.” The challenge, according to Darwish, will be 2023. He said: “It will be the rst time for a while that the city won’t have a big event. I expect it will be a tough year. Ramadan is coming early, during the strong tourism seasons. Any hotel in this industry that cannot cover their cost in the rst and last quarter will have a very challenging year.” Darwish’s plan is to leverage Dubai’s proximity to Qatar and cover some 2023 targets by smashing Q4 in 2022. “During the world cup, we are aiming for a full house. The goal is to do our best at the end of this year, so we can exceed expectations in 2023.” “We are dynamic, we are luxury and we have a strong mindset to satisfy guests. In control back to the guests and allows them to bid on the last ve or six rooms in the hotel. We only deploy it during the high season.” READING THE ROOM Darwish believes he is very in tune with the local market. “I am from Rashidiya. I know what the people here want. I hear them every day when I am sitting in the lobby. When we launched our rst big marketing push in April 2020, they were calling us the hotel of the fashionistas. Then we became known as the hotel of the celebrities. No one else in Dubai is really focusing on celebrities.” Today the guests at Palazzo Versace are a healthy mix. Darwish explained: “Every year is different, 2019 was our year of Chinese tourists, in 2020 it was 70 percent Emiratis, but this year is a total mix. The beauty of an independent property is we can action certain markets without having to get any higher-ups involved. We are quick to observe movements and target them ef ciently. In the absence of China, for example, Israel was one of our top ve countries in 2021 and 2022. So we really keep our eye on the emerging markets and can target them correctly.” A FOCUS ON FUTURE TRENDS It was in his lobby that Darwish came Caption here The Palazzo Versace gardens Hotelier Awards special hoteliermiddleeast.com October 2022 28 BEST OF T Find out who won at the Hotelier Middle East Awards 2022, and whyHotelier Awards special 29 October 2022 hoteliermiddleeast.com This year’s Hotelier Middle East Awards was the largest in its history. With over 1,100 submissions and more categories than ever, 2022 brought about more success stories than many thought possible. Not only did we announce winners and highly commended across 23 judge- decided categories, we also gave out three Editor’s Choice Awards. These trio of awards are for those that impressed the Hotelier editorial team throughout the year, but did not t into any one category. They are: Sustainability Project of the Year, Breakout Property of the Year and the Industry Leader of the Year. Held at the JW Marriott Marquis Hotel Dubai, the gala event took place Thursday evening on September 8. Event sponsors include Lyre’s Non-Alcoholic, Duetto, Technogym, Red Bull, Rent-A-Towel, African & Eastern, Sketches and 800Doctor. After a year of immensely hard work and incredible results, the evening was a well-deserved celebration to those keeping Middle East hospitality on top of the world. Read on to nd out who won and why they were selected. THE BESTNext >