The company that manages Abu Dhabi's biggest hotel has warned against five-star properties cutting their rates in the face of increased competition, amid fears that price wars in the capital could deepen.
Six luxury hotels have opened in the capital over the past few months and more will launch in the coming months, fuelling concerns that profitability, which has already fallen sharply, could decline further.
"The price war exists," said Ali Hamad Lakhraim, the president and chief executive of Millennium & Copthorne Hotels for the Middle East and Africa, which operates the Grand Millennium Al Wahda in the capital. "In some cases you have five-star hotels competing with three-star prices. This is mainly created by general managers trying to fill hotels." Profitability has already fallen by 50 per cent from peaks in 2008 for many UAE hotels because of the global economic downturn and new supply, Mr Lakhraim said.
"General managers need to be well controlled, either by their companies or by their owners," he said.
"If a hotel which is 10 years old has to compete with a brand-new, newly opened hotel at the same level, the competition is not there really because the guest will probably choose the new hotel."
But Mr Lakhraim admits his company is also likely to be guilty of being dragged into the price war.
"In some cases I will have to cut prices as well, if I have to survive … For others who are opening new - they don't have clients, they don't have the loyalty or the people who are used to the hotel, and their depreciation and costs are very high. They can go and start harming the market, but then they wake up and realise that this is wrong, because it doesn't cover their expenses."
Hotels that have opened recently in Abu Dhabi include the Jumeirah at Etihad Towers and a Westin resort at Abu Dhabi Golf Club. Properties slated to open this year include the brand names Ritz-Carlton, Sofitel and the Anantara Eastern Mangroves hotel.
Philippe Anric, the general manager of the Centro Al Manhalin Abu Dhabi, a three-star hotel that opened in November, says that hotels in the city are having to compete much harder for business.
"It can be a challenge if some hoteliers start to panic," he said. "I'm afraid about the domino effect, where everybody is going to start to reduce the price - the five-star starting to chase the market of the fours and the fours starting to chase the threes. I hope it's not going to happen."
Analysts said the new supply would prompt many hotels to review various options to compete.
"It's a real conundrum," said Gavin Samson, the director for the hospitality property advisory firm Christie + Co, Mena. "The fear of both owners and operators is that obviously when new supply comes to the market in Abu Dhabi and Dubai's case - but particularly Abu Dhabi at the moment - these properties are driven by the need to generate revenue and to get market share and drive occupancy so they are going to reduce rates.
"The dilemma for the older properties is how do you compete with the brand-new boys on the block? Reduce room rates … or you have to consider the question of do I refurbish, do I reposition, do I take on another brand?"
rbundhun@thenational.ae
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Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
The National's picks
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Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Heather, the Totality
Matthew Weiner,
Canongate
Company Profile
Name: Thndr
Started: 2019
Co-founders: Ahmad Hammouda and Seif Amr
Sector: FinTech
Headquarters: Egypt
UAE base: Hub71, Abu Dhabi
Current number of staff: More than 150
Funds raised: $22 million
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
Tell Me Who I Am
Director: Ed Perkins
Stars: Alex and Marcus Lewis
Four stars
