Bruno Guilloux
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Tell us briefly about Bonnington Jumeirah Lake Towers?
We are a five-star hotel located in the Jumeirah Lakes Towers community in Dubai. The 40-storey hotel boasts 208 well-appointed rooms and suites (all non-smoking), 272 deluxe serviced hotel apartments, five restaurants and bars and four fully-equipped conference suites.
The Bonnington also includes the Almas Conference Centre which has the capacity to accommodate up to 550 guests. Apart from the meetings facilities, the hotel offers its guests the Leisure Deck on the 11th floor with an infinity pool, gym, pool side bar and restaurant, jacuzzi, steam room and sauna.
Could you elaborate on the hotel’s performance so far?
The last year has been very positive for us as we experience a growth of more than 25% compared to 2011. This growth trend is continuing in 2013 too as we garnered a 10-15% growth over 2012 in the first quarter. We experienced growth not only in revenue but also with the apartments. We have a good combination of a hotel and apartments to offer, so it gives us space to sell. We are more a leisure property when it comes to the apartments. Just going back in time, we repositioned the hotel in 2011, focusing more on the corporate sector with a touch on leisure too. This has reaped us good as in 2013, we witnessed strong leisure numbers. To boost this, we have partnered with a beach club. This is a new addition for our leisure travellers. Our advantage with the corporate segment is our location.
Which would be your focus market?
Bonnington as an independent luxury hotel, we cannot forget the fact that the hotel belongs to an Irish family. Keeping this in mind, our primary market would be Europe first followed by the US and GCC market. We all know that Dubai receives a mix of tourist so our next focus market would be Australia.The CIS market is also a big potential. They look to us for long-term stays especially the apartments; this is followed by India, China and the South America market. Locally, it would be the areas of JLT, Jebel Ali and Media City.
What are the hotel’s key developments?
Australia is the new market focus especially with the Qantas and Emirates. We are working closely with Emirates on their promotion programs within the region. This is being done as we see great revenue from this market.
Could you elaborate on your expectations for this year?
We had budgeted for this year a 10-15% growth and I think we are in line with our forecast. We expect the summer to be good too. The apartments are still running as we have a lot of GCC visitors. The apartments can be rented on a short, medium and long-term basis so this works well for customers. On an average, our corporate stay in the hotel for around 3.5 days but we would like to focus on our apartments for short and mid-term stays due to high yield.
Do you see any kind of expansion?
There are no expansion plans at the moment. We are right now want to make sure the brand is well established and positioned, before expanding into other markets.
What bookings mediums work well for the hotel?
We prefer to work directly with clients. We are also of the opinion that travel agents are essential. We are also affiliated with World Hotels so this helps us with the network and marketing. They are very well-connected globally and support us in terms of sales. The online business is very minimal as compared to direct bookings.
Could we see any refurbishments in the pipeline?
We are working on a new concept for the Cavendish restaurant. We feel there is need for something different in JLT. This new change will not just be for the hotel but also the community.
What are the challenges you face promoting the property?
Our business comprises of 60% corporate and the rest a mix of leisure. We would like to keep the focus stronger on corporate. As corporate travellers is less demanding than a leisure traveller so its easier to manage and the reward is higher. However, we cannot ignore the leisure market. Based on our focus, the biggest challenge we face is in the food and beverage segment. How do we retain our guests within the premises of our property for F&B. This is an issue faced by most hotels in Dubai due to the F&B variety on offer.
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