Now the hospitality industry can bag an award before opening for business, with the launch of the 2007 Development Awards at this year’s Arabian Hotel Investment Conference.
Accordingly to AHIC spokesperson, Jonathan Worsley, the initiative is the result of a 50-strong advisory panel call to acknowledge cutting-edge innovation in the region’s burgeoning hospitality sector.
“With more than 41 new hotels expected to open in Dubai alone in the next 36 months, let alone the vast, often-pioneering leisure projects, we felt that the spotlight should fall on the region’s best-of-breed and so the Development Award was conceived,” explained Worsley.
The award scheme has two categories, Best New Hotel Development and Innovation Award, and will be presented at a lunchtime event on the second day of the conference sessions, April 30, at the Madinat Jumeirah Conference Centre, Dubai.
Worsley said that nominations for the Best New Hotel Development Award and the Innovation Award will be short listed to the top three in each category by a judging panel comprising of some of the hospitality industry’s leading minds. The winner will be voted for by the advisory board and sponsors of AHIC.
“Criteria is based on participants investment, scale of the project, use of new and emerging building concepts, alternative construction methods and sustainable and innovative design among others,” he said.
“With these awards, we hope to encourage and applaud projects that are trying to stay at the top of the game in making Arabia a leading business and leisure destination.
For the third year running, AHIC is being held under the patronage of Emirates’ chairman and president of Dubai Civil Aviation, His Highness Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum.
Platinum sponsors at the 2006 event are: Bawadi; Istithmar Hotels; Kingdom Hotel Investments; IFA Hotels & Resorts; Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels and The Rezidor Hotel Group.
Gold sponsors are: Accor; Arabian Travel Market; Coral International Hotels, Resorts & Spas; Emaar Hotels & Resorts; Emirates; Etihad; Fairmont Raffles Hotels International Inc; Golden Tulip Hotels, Inns & Resorts; GuestInvest; Hamilton Hotel Partners; Hilton Hotels; Horwath HTL Group; HVS International; InterContinental Hotels & Resorts; Interval International; Jumeirah Group; Marriott International; Morgan Stanley; Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts; Northcourse Leisure Real Estate Solutions; OBM International; Rakeen; RCI Global Vacation Network; Rotana; Strategic Solutions; Shaza Hotels; Sidley Austin; Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc; The Taj Hotels Resorts & Palaces, Tourism Western Australia; TRI Hospitality Consulting Middle East, Turks & Caicos Islands Government; Wimberley Allison Tong & Goo; WestLB and Wyndham Hotel Group International.
Media sponsors are: AME Info, Arabian Business.com, Arabian Travel News, Breaking Travel News, CNBC Arabia, Destinations of the World News, Hotels’ Investment Outlook, Hotel & Motel Management, Hospitality News, Hotelier Middle East, Sleeper and TTN.
AHIC 2007 is jointly organised by The Bench and the Middle East Economic Digest (MEED). It will run from April 28-30, 2007 at Dubai’s Madinat Jumeirah Convention Centre.
To register visit www.arabianconference.com
About the organisers:
The Bench, a global partner with Smith Travel Research (STR), is a market leader in providing online daily benchmarking data to more than 4,000 hotels in over 100 markets worldwide. As the sole provider of an online benchmarking solution offering real time data, The Bench brings accurate hotel performance statistics to the market at an unparalleled speed. With the flexibility and ease of creating an unlimited number of competitive sets, configure reports at will in a multiple of formats and access all information on a 24 hour basis, The Bench users are able to maximise their RevPAR penetration by measuring their daily performance against their competitors.
Jonathan Worsley, Chairman of The Bench and a consultant to CB Richard Ellis Hotels, is one of the organisers and founders of the International Hotel Investment Forum held each year in Berlin. In 2005, he was responsible for launching the successful Arabian Hotel Investment Conference. Worsley sits as an advisor to the World Travel & Tourism Council which represents many of the leading companies operating worldwide in the travel and tourism industry
jonathan.worsley@thebench.com on +44 1483 835794
or gillian.powell@thebench.com on +44 208 297 2053
MEED
MEED (Middle East Economic Digest) is internationally recognised as providing essential information for anyone doing business in, or with, the Middle East and North Africa. MEED now attracts over 70,000 individual readers each week, across 70 countries worldwide. MEED Conferences is part of the leading information brand in the Middle East working to provide delegates with the very latest business sensitive information. For more than a decade, MEED Conferences has organised events attended by senior government officials and thousands of international business people. The conference series is aimed at companies active or seeking business in the markets of the Middle East. MEED is well established as the source of strategic and accurate regional information placing it in a unique position to bring together high-calibre speakers.
ross.macdonald@meed-dubai.com on + 9714 368 1949
