appropriateness of the design of hotel resort facilities in the context of Anantara The Palm Dubai Resort

 appropriateness of the design of hotel resort facilities in the context of Anantara The Palm Dubai Resort

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to explores the appropriateness of the design of hotel resort facilities in the context of a specific hotel resort operation. One resort was selected (Anantara The Palm Dubai Resort) as the case study and document analysis and observation will be used to derive at a conclusion whether it qualifies as and international resorts, what are the facilities, extra services that it offers, finally, the paper will aim to assess the impact that such resort created on the Dubai city from environmental, to social and economic aspects.

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Introduction

The history or resorts go back to the Roman days, however, By the early 2000s, resort tourism had become a major form of tourism for many countries and destination areas (Agarwal, 2002). A resort is a planned vacation business that is designed to attract, hold and satisfy its guests so they become repeat visitors and/or goodwill ambassadors. To achieve these objectives requires a management strategy that can operate at a variety of scales and with a selection of target markets, but its constant must be the creation of a valued experience (Murphy, P. 2008).

UAE and Dubai in specific is no exception to this rule, in fact, Dubai has built a lot of its tourism heritage on resorts tourism. What differentiates a hotel from a resort is not only the hotel design, space and facilities offered, but most importantly, the experiences that it leaves with its guests. As competition increased due to the rise in hotels numbers offering basic services, lodging properties found themselves in a situation where they have to differentiate themselves against their competition (Kandampully et al., 2001).

Vallen and Vallen (2005) define facilities as ‘any extra product or service found in the hotel: a swimming pool, concierge desk, health spa, and so on. Hotels market-share gain was very relevant to the increase of in the guest rooms (Bernstein, 1999). Having said that, the increase of facilities and services offered was not directly equated with profitability ( Enz et al., 1999) as additional facilities and services come at a cost to the resort and the owners. Through this assignment, I will investigate the design, facilities and services of the Anantara Palm Dubai Resort, with the view to assess if the Anantara Palm Dubai, qualifies as a resort, furthermore, I will investigate the services and amenities offered by the resort, and the customer experience utilizing these services

The Anantara Resort is located the famous Dubai Main-man Island ‘The Palm’. It embraces a land of approximately 7,7 hectares of

• 293 accommodation units with 472 beds
• 270 Villas of 1, 2 and 3 bedrooms with a total of 640 beds
• 6 Dining outlets, Spas, man-made lagoon access, wellness, tennis court, conferences and kids club
• Leisure packages that include: Fishing, Camping and Diving

The project has a total 43.000 sqm of gross construction area, divided mainly between Hotel and Villas. It also features a commercial area and several leisure and recreational areas. Furthermore, the site is inserted into an area of great scenic and landscape richness offered by the magnificent Stunning lagoon or Dubai skyline views

Considering the above description of the hotel amenities, facilities and services, the Anantara Hotel can surely qualify as a hotel resort that is worth investigating as a case-study for the purpose of this paper.

Anantara Resort Operation and the design of the facilities

Design in hotel and its facilities is considered as a core aspect that can contribute towards adding value to both managements and guests (Stipanuk, 2006). The design of a hotel resort can provide an identity or character to the business. Anantara Resort created somehow a unique identity through the exclusive villas and facilities design it created. However, Anantara had a major disadvantage of entering the luxury hotel market at matured stage.

The Anantara Hotel Group is a new and rather a late comer to the ‘oversupplied’ lodging sector in the UAE. Penetrating the luxury hotel sector in the UAE is quite challenging as Dubai established itself as the home for the first ‘seven-starts’ hotel in the world (Burj-Al Arab), for the Anantara Resort to establish itself as a distinguished luxury hotel in Dubai, they had to pay escalated costs related not only to the cost of construction on a man-made island but also because the complexity of operations increased as the offering of services, facilities and amenities expanded.

The creation of attractive environments through design can support resort operations in their quest for providing ambience and environment (Kotler, 1973). Anantara Resort, used over-the-top, but functional and aesthetic elements such as a building’s architecture, style and layout to create this ambience. Apart from providing for all the basic necessities  to their customer, Anantara Resort paid attention to all the tangible and intangible details that leaves customers with remarkable experiences. From the very well through through design to the careful selection of toiletries to the meticulous selection of furniture, the resort management paid close attention to hundreds of minor details that mutually create a differentiating factor in the resort stay. Siguaw and Enz (1999) explain that ‘One attribute that travelers often seek in a hotel is its ability to make the traveler feel comfortable while on a trip, the Anantara Resort used residential or home-like experiences accomplish the task of making customers feel at home, starting from the naming of the accommodation facilities, the Anantara Resort for example has two set of accommodation (Villas and Apartments), all the rooms in the buildings are called apartments.

Exterior design, Interiors selection, space utilization, amenities and services are critical aspects that enrich the resort interior environment (Bitner, 1992; Brady and Cronin, 2001). Besides the fabulous exterior design of the resort, all Anantara Resort extravagant villa’s and rooms include an in-room iPad, a Nespresso machine, complimentary bottles of water, remote-controlled drapes and blinds, a nightlight, controlled air-conditioning system, flat-panel TV, DVD player, MP3/CD alarm-clock radio, complimentary high-speed wireless Internet access, work desk, mini refrigerator, in-room iron and ironing board, hair-dryers, bathrobes, branded toiletries, and humidifier. The one-bedroom apartments offer fully equipped kitchen and separate living and dining rooms, extremely spacious balcony overlooking Palm Lagoon. The two Bedroom apartments offer additionally, a rooftop terrace and Master bedroom with additional two ensuite bedrooms. The Villas’ rooms feature tasteful alpine cabinets, elegant décor, and a lavish services that include private pool, direct beach access, Villa private butler, private terrace and access to the infinity pool.

The Anantara Resort offers four tasteful and memorable dining experiences that include one of the few Australian Cafes, fully equipped health club, business center and access to tourists experiences such as desert campaign and fishing.

Customers can feel the exclusiveness of the experiences at the resort from the moment they place a foot on the premises, a large number of entourage awaits at the entrance of the resort to greet their customers, followed by welcome drinks that are immediately offered upon arrival, private hosts leads guests to their accommodation to explain all the facilities and services that they can get through their stay. The personalized services offered at the resorts extends to the entire customer stay, starting with the duty manager personal call to check on customers, to providing unexpected surprises such as anniversary cakes and greeting cards, are just a few to mention.

A facility’s design will clearly dictate the scope of the facility management function’ Stipanuk (2006), with Anantara Resort management focusing enhancing customers’ experience, they have ensured that the design and layout of the hotel goes hand in hand with the Inclusiveness of luxury design, comfort and memorable experiences. This has so far proved to be a rewarding strategy for The Anantara resorts,  as it reported a steady occupancy rate higher than market average (70%). Accordingly, to popular travel sites such as Trivago, booking.com, Trip Advisor, customer reported gave high ranking satisfaction rates to the Anantara Report.

Customer Segmentation and Marketing Strategies at the Anantara Hotel

Segmenting tourists is a practically useful way of conceiving, designing, developing, and delivering tourism products to various clientele groups (Dodd and Bigotte, 1997; Snepenger, 1987).  Whilst attracting more customers is related profitability, various studies showed that hotels can be more profitable when focused on a particular segment that the can identify with as this helps that hotel to narrow down their offering, hence simplify their operations and therein have less costs of operation (Hennessey, 1998; Enz et al., 1999) The concept of resort `Market Segment`: `The most important lesson has been to target resorts to particular market segments – those who the resort can reach and satisfy (2008, Mason, P.) however, segmentation is not always easy

The array of amenities and services at the Anantara Resort attract a large number of customer segments particularly who are luxury-seekers, who visit Dubai with the view to enjoy the Arabia Luxury at affordable prices. In short, the customer segment for the Anantara hotel is universal.

The Anantara resort typically targets to attract two types of customers (self-paying and corporates).

Self-paying Customers: are likely to be married with kids, middle age, Europeans but also attracts other rich Arab Customers, typically customers are not price sensitive, but like to have exceptional experiences and don’t mind paying for it.  They are primarily leisure seekers, who are looking for rewarding experiences.

• Online Advertising
• Website –  Best Available Rate sold through the website
• Word of Mouth: through publishing reviews from customers
• Facebook/Twitter and other social media advertising
• Wholesale deals with popular travel booking sites (booking.com, Traveller, Trivago, Trip Advisor)

Corporate Customers: Anantara is not a business hotel, but surely has equipped its facilities and premises to entertain corporate events such as business meetings, PR and company events. The hotel has an outstanding business center, moreover, it has a convention facility that can be used for corporate events such as annual parties.

Main strategies to attract the corporate segment:

• Negotiated Rates with large corporates
• Direct deals with airline Crews
• Government deals
• Offline /online advertising Publications
• Wedding special packages
• Events organizations and packages

Currently, Anantara resorts faces unique challenges in data collection to better improve its marketing strategies, this is due to the fact that most of the booking are done online, or through a wholesale deals. However, with time, the Anantara Resort will be able to build its own database from visiting customers, hence, will be in a better position to improve its marketing and advertising strategies.

Environmental, Social and Economical issues associated with the Anantara Resort Development

The Anantara resort design also indicate that while providing a distinguished experience to guests is paramount, addressing environmental concerns can be equally important.

Whilst the Anantara hotel was successful in creating and designing a resort that distinguishes itself from other luxury hotels, this came with a prices, the Construction of the Anantara Resort by itself created: `construction traffic damage, dust Pollution, noise Pollution, Materials usage. in order to build the villas and rooms, a huge number of trees, construction materials had to be imported and shipped to the Island as the villas, apartments interiors and boardwalk were made out of wood. The apartments at the resort were built with bricks and cement and the finishing were made of wood and rattan. Surely, all these imports contributed to the loss of some valuable natural resources

In addition to that, the fact that the Anantara is built on a man-made island, it is directly contributing to the deterioration of the surrounding environment. Greenpeace has criticized the Palm Islands’ extensive lack of sustainability, and Mongabay.com, a site dedicated to rainforest conservation, has critized Dubai’s artificial islands aggressively, stating that:

“significant changes in the maritime environment [of Dubai] are leaving a visual scar [. . .] As a result of the dredging and redepositing of sand for the construction of the islands, the typically crystalline waters of the gulf of Dubai have become severely clouded with silt”.

One of the key experience that the Anantara Resort offers is the Palm Boat drive.  It takes approximately 30 minutes to complete the drive. During the journey, there is a possibility of oil leaked by the boat engines that can cause pollution to the water.

The resort also offers various recreational packages such as Desert Camping Packages and fishing packages During these memorable experiences, often guests don’t refrain from littering and other actions that are inappropriate to the environment.

All the Villas within the Resort come with a private pool, this is in addition to the infinity pool that is located in the heart of the resort. Such pools don’t use sea-water but rather are chemically treated and temperature -controlled pools, these pools require loss of energy as pumps are used to circulate water into these pools, this in addition to the water waste and  the use of chemicals such as chlorine, that has a negative impact on the environment. The evaporated pool chemicals contribute to the production of greenhouse gases.

Due to the warm weather in the UAE, the resort buildings are equipped with modern HVAC systems that provide comfortable and controlled temperature rooms to their guests, however, these modern HVAC systems utilize a considerable amount of energy and release lots of toxic gases into the environment.

Social Impact:

The creation of such resorts have an immense experiences for both the locals and residents. Firstly, such attractions bring a large number of tourists that come from different background with different social habits and culture that are by nature contradictory to the social environment of the UAE. On the positive side, such tourists, have made Dubai a city with a global orientation however, took away from the unique identify of the city. The construction of resorts has also had a significant visual impact on the sea area. Once spectacular coastal views are now blocked from view or marred by man-made features. Land- use patterns have systematically consumed open spaces and scenic resources only offering them to a minuscule number of hotel guests.

Economic Impact:

The rate of tourist growth has made the economy overly de pendent on this one sector, leaving Dubai extremely vulnerable to external economic forces. A tourist attack, , economic recession made Dubai very venerable economically to the influx of tourist. Additionally, such resorts promise the creation of more jobs to the locals and residents, however, it is widely believed the UAE locals are not attracted to work in the hotel and lodging industry, mainly because of the long working hours it requires, also because of religious reasons. A Study to the hotel industry would reveal the fast majority of employees are migrates to the UAE, which creates not only economically unbalanced jobs opportunities, but also creates demographic unfavorable situation for the locals.

Recommendations on improvements to Anantara Resort design and services to reduce the environmental impact.

Anantara Resort can consider ways in which it can combines design and comfort with environmentally responsible strategies that include energy-saving systems, starting from the installation of energy-saving systems and insulation of Solar Panels, Wind turbines and Ground Source Heat Pumps. Even smaller actions such as the use of LED lights and high efficiency washing machines allows the Anantara to minimize the amount of fuel consumption and exhaust output.

The Anantara Resort can become a leading example in the way it disposes trash through creating a system for burning trash and converting it into energy sources, furthermore it can take the extra step of flying trash to countries that have systems for energy conversion

With regards to campaign packages, the resort can place a ‘deposit’ to be taken as a fine for littering, this way customers will ensure that they keep their places clean. To ensure cleanliness and to avoid pollution to the environment, all garbage and wastage from the guests and maintenance of the site should be brought back to the resort for proper disposal.

Also, the resort can introduce eco-friendly fishing packages that include the practice of catch and release. And Instead of engine speed -boats, the Resort can use float or wood-made wood for the Palm drive as well as the fishing trips.

Additionally, it can improve on the minimization of the water usage by replacing the chemically treated, temperature-controlled water by sea water pools, this particularly fit for a country such as the UAE, where the sea-water has always acceptable level of temperature.

For any future developments, The Anantara Resort can hire a specialist to that the new development on the Palm is suitable for further construction and will not add to the current issues of destroying the marine life.

Also,  In the Anantara scenario, can become a champion in encouraging customers and guests to be more environmentally minded, for example the Resort can give incentive such loyalty points or discounts to guests who take initiatives on recycling the beddings and towels. Other initiatives that the resort can encourage is the use of glass water bottles rather than the plastic ones