Jumeirah Group adds a ‘b’ to leisure and it’s working fine
UPSCALE HOSPITALITY BRAND MAKES A GREAT PUSH FOR ‘BLEISURE’
Dubai is emerging as one of the world’s ‘bleisure’ hubs - and Jumeirah Group wants to speed up the process with new projects.
“One of the things that we have seen is the blurring lines between business and leisure travel,” said Alex Lee, Chief Commercial Officer at the upscale hotel operator. “We are seeing this come together to create not only a reason to travel more frequently, but travel for a longer duration.
“This is because, with the ability to remote work, travellers are able to stay in the destination as long as they want.”
Guests on bleisure trips will typically add extra days to their business trip in order to relax. Lee said, “It started off at first as customers wanting to take a leisure trip and then adding on additional days, but now it also works the other way around. Guests on a business trip add on additional days for leisure at the end of the trip.”
Lee said that bleisure travellers look for a longer stay and greater space, and the Jumeirah is already launching properties catering to this segment. Hinting at the Group’s latest all-villa luxury resort in Bali, Lee said that the Jumeirah’s villa portfolio is just ‘perfect’ for bleisure travellers.
“The strength of the villa product is really coming to the forefront of this time post-pandemic,” he said.
Jumeirah in Bali
The Dubai brand launched an all-villa luxury resort in Bali in April. The resort offers 123 villas in one- and two-bedroom configurations, as well as a four-bedroom Royal Water Palace. Each villa features a private pool and outdoor living area. “The project was delayed from the original timeline due to Covid-19 - we are now looking at busy summer for Bali,” said Lee. “Bali is now in a great season from a weather perspective.
While Lee confirmed that the group has no intentions of launching any sub-brands in terms of hotels, Jumeirah did seize the opportunity to expand its existing property brands. During the pandemic, it launched the Jumeirah Living Marina Gate, a serviced residence in Dubai Marina.
Lee said that the pandemic has been a ‘great opportunity’ for Jumeirah to refocus on the needs of consumers. “The other thing that we working on is expanding our experiences through dining as being one of the key deliverables,” said Lee. “Over the last 18 months, we launched 13 new restaurant and bar concepts - the most significant being SAL at Burj Al Arab.
Saudi ambitions
Jumeirah has two projects lined up in Makkah and the Red Sea, but these won’t definitely be the only ones in the Kingdom. “The Makkah project is expected to open either late 2022 or early 2023,” said Lee. “The second project that we had started on is on the Red Sea, and it’s one of the first resorts that will open there,” he added. “We are very keen to continue to expand into other destinations in Saudi Arabia, and we would absolutely look to go into cities such as Jeddah as well as Riyadh.”