ROC 2020 - A Reflection

It was June 2020 when the steering committee for HSMAI Middle East decided to go ahead with the ROC 2020 conference. The times were tough with a lot of uncertainty. Most importantly, it's just impossible to deliver a great conference experience without the support of your partners and sponsors. But Mona Faraj spent the next 5 months in getting that part of the business organized while we focused on content and speakers.

Since we had already done the ROC@Home event some time back, which was a 100% virtual event, we wanted to ensure that we have a Hybrid option in place and that gave us a great choices of speakers from across the world. Industry leaders who couldn't make it to Dubai for any reason could still join us to participate in the conference.

And finally on 06 Dec 2020, HSMAI Middle East delivered industry's first hybrid event in Dubai with over 130 participants that attended in person at the Intercontinental Dubai Festival City Events Centre and over 200 participants on the virtual platform.

And while I was personally involved in managing the keynotes and Track 1 that was titled - Profitable Revenue, I was also busy trying to capture my takeaways from the day. Unfortunately I couldn't attend the Track 2 which covered "Digital Transformation" but will certainly go through the content to see what was discussed.

Our theme for the event was -

Stay Connected, Stay Informed , Stay Relevant

When we stay connected, we get the inspiration and we get solutions to our business problems. Since change is constant, by being informed we ensure that we are ready for this change and possibly driving the change where required. There will be lot of information download, things will be agile and will move very fast. Which means staying relevant. Analyzing and reviewing and understanding what is relevant for you and the business.

In the DTCM session, Issam summarized beautifully

" There is something about personal touch"

and I did felt that when surrounded by your fellow colleagues and friends from the industry. You can do or attend a virtual event but there is a different fun when you bump in to an old friend or an ex-colleague at the lunch buffet or coffee station and specially when you are trying to identify one behind their masks.

One of the initial keynotes was on Global Macro Indicators where Scott Livermore from Oxford Economics Middle East shared a great update. Global trade is back to pre Covid levels and is following a very similar pattern of recovery now to last economic crisis. This is good news because global trade bounce back does triggers demand for travel and tourism.

Wiebke Siemering from OTA Insight shared some micro indicators on travel in Middle East. And she summed up beautifully - Historical data is good to have but that's not what will help you prepare for future. Get your data strategy right and updated to be prepared for future!!

On the metrics front while we all embrace RGI as a benchmark for performance, there has always been a need to understand how you are doing on the bottom lines and how does that relate to your competition or market. HotStats does that job for us. Michael Grove shared data around both top and bottom line. He talked about how luxury took a big dip on GOPPAR initially but has had the strongest recovery as well. This is because while the ADR helps on top lines, the hotels have been able to control their costs during the last 6-7 months now. Another interesting slide was how the cost of operations has also increased with the focus on cleanliness and sanitization. While our host hotel did a great job in sanitizing the room and chairs during each break, it did kept me thinking on the cost that goes behind this. An additional sanitizer on every table, masks, gloves.....it's cost at the end of the day. He also mentioned on the impact on F&B because of social distancing. A 1.5m social distancing rule erases 87% of the revenue for every dollar that you used to make. And a 1m rule takes out 69.3% of that revenue with the biggest impact being on restaurants.

One slide that caught my attention had this quote -

"Without Data you are just another person with an Opinion" -  W. Edward Deming

We started our Panel discussions on Track 1 to discuss what is important to focus on - Driving Revenue or consider profitability. And I think the verdict was that we need a profitable revenue but sometimes just a drive on revenue also helps to generate cash flow that is very critical for some of the hotels.

We had a session on Thinking Differently, where Michael Borges shared some great examples on how hotels have re-invented themselves and been creative to drive incremental demand. We shared 5 success stories from the region and the winners - Rove Hotels got a free membership to HSMAI for two for next year. Congratulations to the winners and all who were nominated and a big round of applause to every one who embarked on that journey of Thinking Differently!!

And then came my dear friend and ex-colleague Mark Ryan (based in Bangkok now) to moderate a session on "Survive or Thrive - The Entrepreneur Mindset". Now how much you might prepare and rehearse but when the day comes, anything can happen. So while Michael was busy introducing Mark on stage, I was working hard with the AV team to get Mark on the screen. It seemed the topic became very relevant - Survive or Thrive. So we ran a few filler videos, got a panelist Alex Lee from Jumeirah to become a moderator for sometime and eventually got Mark live on the screen!! And what did we get out of this session - Don't be afraid to fail. This is the time to Test & Learn. And somewhere a message to the audience was be an asset manager. Take your commercial decisions in totality, thinking about the entire asset. And that one change of mindset in itself will open new doors for you.

We had a lunch break and enjoyed our lunch boxes under the sun, overlooking the Dubai Creek with great service from the team.

Back into the ball room and we had some aerobics, some stretching to get the energy back. Much needed!!

Next was Mark Patten talking about F&B. He again brought in the importance of measuring your F&B Metrics. So while there is noise around benchmarking and sharing of data, let's start by looking inwards. Let's start making sure that we have the right data o measure on daily basis at the property level. Let's bring that cultural change first in our "morning meetings" and move the focus to F&B. It's not just about numbers. It is indeed a massive cultural shift that is required. And this is indeed the time to move the needle. Mark also did share some facts around how the industry has been impacted in Dubai and how a lot of restaurants have actually ended up closing down. A reality check indeed!!

This was followed by my session on "Future of Revenue Management" that I moderated. My panelists were Klaus, Niels, Priyanka and Prof. Kimes. And we talked about what the industry can look forward to in the coming year when it comes to RM. We discussed the convergence of Technology, Data and AI and how this is going to be so critical moving forward. The role of RMS and more importantly how CRM can also play a critical role in driving Customer Life Time Value. We did bring in the subject of centralization of resources for RM, need for talent specially in Middle East vs rising costs. Referred back to HOTSTATS session on how we need to go beyond RevPar and RGI to understand the wider metrics and then the big question on Total Revenue Management. Why - Why - Why are we too slow to adapt to the change and the need. We ended up with a quick thoughts on skills vs competencies and as Prof. Kimes says - it is indeed time now for the RM to rise and shine. Think strategically vs being tactical.

We were joined by Haitham Mattar from KSA who shared with us his thoughts on How to thrive with agility, speed and resilience. He mentioned, resilience is not a passive quality but an active process. You are not born with this so you can definitely learn this and master this. He also emphasized the need for celebrating small wins.

Raquel moderated a session on MICE. There were a few data slides that showed that while Associations business will be slow to return, Socials will be less impacted vs all others. Not to mention that there will be less demand for gala dinners and team building sessions.

A great event indeed and a day well spent. We ended the event with a very casual reception on the pool side with a great view and a great winter weather of Dubai.

We will be back again on 05 Dec 2021 for another great edition of ROC, Until then -

#Stay Safe #Keep Testing #Keep Learning #Keep Rocking