Dubai is experiencing a rapid growth in the tourism industry where the number of tourists visiting Dubai is projected to reach 15 million by the year 2010, according to a report by Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI). This growth is posing a challenge for 2 and 3 star hotels to remain price competitive while at the same time, meet the increasing demand for accommodation. The demand is also creating challenges for existing 2 and 3 star hotels working to maintain their position in the market with the arrival of new and aggressive competition.
To address this situation, a series of workshops entitled "From Bull to Bear - maximising your hotel’s potential in the competitive hospitality market of Dubai" (see www.daex.biz) were held in Dubai in July and September to keep Dubai’s two and three star hotels abreast of Daex’s ongoing development and implementation. The workshops aimed to provide an insight into some of the challenges facing 2 and 3 star hotels in the region and examine strategies for how they can be overcome. Keynote speeches covered topics including sales and marketing, distribution channels, integrated rate management and making the most of the World Wide Web.
Leading industry consultant Russel G.H. Sharpe, Senior Partner |m|e|z|z|e| Associates led one of the dynamic presentations. The presentation included a competitive market analysis of the UAE hotel sector with particular focus on the entry of major 2, 3 and 4 star hotel brands. According to Sharpe, the entry of these international brands has stepped up the competition in the sector and for the large part will be responsible for lowering rates and impacting the current high occupancy rates being experienced by hotels in Dubai today. In summary, 2 and 3 star hotels will not only need strong marketing and product strategies that are aligned throughout all customer touch points, but will also need robust and cost-effective distribution channels such as Daex.
Daex, the world’s first hotel inventory system, was launched in May 2006 to cater to this challenge. It is a free web service that interfaces a hotel’s property management system (PMS) to an internet booking engine or tour operating system enabling automated booking of hotel and apartment accommodation based on real-time availability. Daex's business model works on fixed fee per transactions. Daex has proven that it can save hoteliers up to 23% on the total cost of processing their reservations.
“DAEX is a global first for the hotel and travel industry. Its capability to facilitate hotel bookings and reservations in real-time, increases the capacity for a hotel to manage its inventory while reducing costs at the same time. What we are saying to these hotels today is that those who have the system in place will have a definite competitive advantage,” said Simon Lewis, the Manager of eVentures, Emirates Group. “The workshops conducted to date have been received well by the hoteliers. We strongly believe that going forwards more and more hotels will experience the benefits that DaeX brings through these interactive presentations.”
In total, some 23 properties (33% of the 2 and 3 star market) from across Dubai attended the two workshops. Their feedback on the presentations has been very positive with several organizing to meet and develop a plan to implement the DaeX system over the next few months. “Daex is a powerful, cost-effective program that will definitely be implemented by many hotels within Dubai from different categories. As an immediate destination-based tool, Daex is helping to provide a single, real-time view of the rooms availability within Dubai which will make booking process much easier and cost effective for both hotels like ours and tour operators” said Mr Mark Lee, General Manager of Arabian Park Hotel. The key benefit identified by many of these properties was the clear advantage of increased revenue and streamlined booking processes, ensuring that room occupancy rates are at optimum levels.
Ongoing opportunities to learn about the benefits of this innovative system include an upcoming conference for five and four star hotels, scheduled to take place before the end of the year.
DaeX was designed by Mercator - the global aviation industry’s leading IT solutions supplier, and developed jointly with MICROS-Fidelio, the hospitality industry’s leading provider of integrated software solutions - which caters to 99.7% of all five star and 60.2% of all four star hotel property management systems in Dubai. Due to its .Net architecture it can interface to other PMS that provide APIs.
About Mercator:
Mercator is a leading supplier of Information Technology (IT) solutions to the global air travel industry. Its customers include major world airlines such as: Emirates, Air New Zealand, British Airways, Malaysia Airlines, Qantas, South African Airways, Singapore Airlines, SriLankan and Varig.
Through its experience in serving the IT requirements of major organisations, Mercator has developed an extensive portfolio encompassing solutions for airline finance, air cargo and logistics, passenger and airports, airline process outsourcing and business consultancy.
About MICROS Systems Inc: -
MICROS Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: MCRS) is the world's leading developer of enterprise applications serving the hospitality and specialty retail industries exclusively. MICROS serves table service and quick service restaurants, hotels, the leisure and entertainment industry, and specialty retail stores, with complete information management solutions including software, hardware, enterprise systems integration, consulting and support. MICROS's worldwide network consists of over 3,000 employees, 44 subsidiaries in major markets and 111 distributors in 40 countries. And has been serving the global hospitality industry for more than 15 years.
myfidelio.net (www.myfidelio.net) is an enterprise solution for the hospitality industry providing central reservation management services. This advanced e-commerce solution connects individual hotels, hotel chains, corporations, travel suppliers and portals allowing them to conduct travel related e-commerce. (Reservations, distribution to online and traditional travel agencies via the GDS, distribution to Internet portals and to the own hotel website). myfidelio.net is a company of MICROS Systems Inc.
