Priyanka Saxena Ray
When was the first Rove that opened in Dubai?
Rove has just turned six. The first Rove Hotel opened on May 4, 2016, Rove downtown, situated directly opposite to Burj Khalifa, Dubai Mall. It’s a buzzing hotel that is very popular with the guests.
How many Rove currently do you have?
We have nine Rove Hotels in Dubai, offering just over 3500 Rove Rooms across the city.
So what is the positioning of the hotel today?
Affordable lifestyle! We don’t get too hung up on star rating. So technically, we’re a three-star brand. Star ratings mean very different things in different countries and different locations. For example, like I’m from London, some of the five star hotels in central London have smaller rooms than Rove and yet call themselves five-star. So we don’t get too hung up on star ratings. While we do have a star rating currently, but that may change in the future. Given the choice, we wouldn’t have a star rating because travel trends keep changing. Earlier, star ratings used to be very important when people valued size of real estate and certain facilities. Now we all know that you can have an amazing stay in a very small room with great facilities in the hotel.
What percentage of your traffic comes from India?
India is our third biggest market after the UAE and Saudi. However, it’s slightly lower at the moment. I think recently Russia has moved up the ranking.
With nine hotels under your belt, how did you sustain the last two years, which were tough years for the hospitality sector?
I am glad to share that all of our hotels were profitable throughout the pandemic. Every one of our hotels made a profit throughout the pandemic. We kept over 60% of the rooms open regardless of the time and as a group, we’ve had hotels running occupancies up to over 90%, even when the city was facing Covid restrictions.
Is it difficult for a brand like Rove to sustain in Dubai market, which is known for larger than life hotels? So in the midst of all that, how do you position yourself? How are you different? Or better?
So we try to give people everything they need for a great stay without all the frills. There’s so much to do in Dubai now that people, when they come, want to get out and not stay restricted indoors. They don’t necessarily want to be staying in a hotel and have dinner every night in that hotel or only use that hotel’s facility. So we tried to provide really clean, comfortable rooms, great Wi-Fi, super service from our team, an interesting environment and it has worked brilliantly. All our hotel’s unique design and interiors are connected to that local community that you’re in. So if you’re staying in City Walk, there’s a real music scene in that hotel. Why? Because you have an arena across the road – the CocaCola arena.
Thus, we try to provide you a bit of a different experience for a good value with great service. And you’ll find if you go online, many of our hotels are higher rated in terms of guest feedback than many of the famous bigger five star hotels that you may have heard of. So the guests enjoy it.
With nine hotels already under your belt, any expansion plans on the card?
Yes, we’ve got nine in Dubai. They’re all the same. We don’t really have category. They are all upper mid-scale, which means we don’t have a five star and a two star.
Going forward, we are planning to move beyond Dubai and open our next hotel in Ras Al Khaimah next summer. Also, we have plans to open hotels across the GCC region and Oman is an obvious choice. Certainly Saudi and Egypt are also our target countries.
Rove is a home-grown Dubai brand. So if they want to make your stay more authentic, come and stay in this Dubai brand hotel, which would be a great experience. It’s also a great value for money at a time when prices are not going down. So come and explore our hotels in Dubai – we welcome all our Indian guests.
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