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16 February 2016: HOFTEL, the only global alliance of hospitality real estate investors, hosted the first annual Gulf and Indian Ocean Hotel Investors’ Summit (GIOHIS) for the first time in the UAE from 8-9 February, 2016 at the Yas Viceroy Abu Dhabi hotel. The successful Summit, which hosted 210 registered attendees, was opened by His Excellency, Mohammed Al Mubarak, Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority, Chairman of Miral and CEO of Aldar, who outlined his vision of Abu Dhabi as a hub for business, leisure and cultural holidays that, within a decade, that can potentially rival Dubai. The Summit, which was truly created “by hotel owners, for hotel owners,” was comprised of over 80 speakers, of whom 42 were from companies that own hotels, further building its rapport with the investor community. Summit Overview
The Summit’s fresh, unique approach, boasted sessions designed specifically for hotel owners and investors and selected speakers based on quality rather than on sponsorship payments. Key topics included ‘Outbound Investment From The Gulf,’ with heavy hitters like Mike Goodson, head of hotels at ADIA; Gordon Drake, CFO of Kingdom Hotel Investments and Joe Sita, CEO of IFA Investments. Another pertinent topic called “Fight, flight or just shrug and say ‘it’s alright’” focused on how best to tackle owner-operator problems and featured Dr Badr al Badr from Dur Hospitality in the KSA, Monty Bennett, CEO of the Ashford REITs in the USA; Ron Barrott, CEO of Pro-Invest and Anton Bawab, Regional President of Viceroy Hotels. One particularly entertaining session pitted four ‘New Kids on the Block’, One to One Hotels; Jannah Hotels; Vanguard Hotels and Citymax against each other in a battle for investor dollars. Attendee Feedback
Attendee feedback proved to be highly positive, with 94 percent of survey respondents rating the Summit content as good or excellent. An equally impressive 88 percent relayed that the Summit had been good or excellent for networking opportunities. Attendees also loved the Yas Viceroy as a host venue, which also rated at 94 percent positive. The Summit’s success was due in part GIOHIS choosing speakers on merit, not merely based on sponsorship dollars and allowing speakers to tackle controversial topics openly. The 200 plus attendee conference size also allowed plentiful opportunities for networking with key decision makers and encouraged fresh perspectives to flourish as ideas were discussed and debated. Plans For the Future
GIOHIS now looks to begin planning for next year’s Summit, with plans in the pipeline to continue to grow on the success of this year and build an even more successful second Summit. GIOHIS will continue to work on their goal of making hospitality real estate a profitable asset class and overcoming the key issues that can make that objective difficult to achieve, while encouraging positive discourse within the world of hotel owners and investors. HOFTEL Chairman Simon Allison, who commented, “We are thrilled with the outcome of the first annual Gulf and Indian Ocean Investors’ Summit, an event that was successful beyond our wildest dreams and provided true value to our distinguished attendees. We look forward to continued success in the years to come.” Key Sponsors
GIOHIS key partners included Yas Viceroy Abu Dhabi hotel, the official Summit hotel along with Rotana. Additional Summit sponsors included the Indonesia Ministry of Tourism, Bespoke Hotels, Club Med Open Key, Centara, Meininger, Scottish Development, JLL & HVS and more. To learn more about the Gulf and Indian Ocean Hotel Investors’ Summit, please visit: https://giohis.com.
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