For Mohammed El Amir, a business traveller from Egypt, the dry summer heat and Sharjah traffic are bearable aspects that make Ajman a preferred destination over the nearby emirates.
Lounging at the four-star Ramada Beach Hotel one weekday morning last month, he says this is his second trip to the UAE to set up contracting and property businesses in Dubai, and he has always stayed in Ajman.
This time he will stay for 20 days along with his business partner Wael Gharib.
“It is a quiet and clean city, and as I don’t have to go to Dubai everyday for the paperwork I relax in Ajman,” says Mr El Amir, 32, who hails from Suez.
Ramada Beach Hotel Ajman is among the six five and four-star properties in the destination. The emirate expects to tap into the tourist flow to Dubai for Expo 2020 but despite a growing hotel landscape and hectic global roadshows, roadblocks remain. Traffic on the way to Dubai and a slowdown in traditional markets given the currency fluctuations are among the stumbling blocks. But hoteliers expect to access new markets and the corporate sector to drive up year round occupancy levels.
“Ajman’s proximity to Dubai, while still being able to offer more than its more conservative neighbour of Sharjah, is probably part of the game plan to benefit from Dubai’s pulling power as a major air hub in the region,” says John Podaras, an analyst from Hotel Development Resources. “Consequently, Ajman’s tourism fortunes mirror those of Dubai especially at times when Dubai becomes full or too expensive, and Ajman can offer an attractive alternative to wholesalers.”
That said, in terms of affordable luxury, Ajman competes with the likes of Egypt’s Red Sea resorts, to which tourists are increasingly returning, and Ras Al Khaimah resorts that are building up a critical mass.
The UAE's smallest emirate has been adding luxury hotels in a strategy similar to that of Ras Al Khaimah, of affordable luxury.
“There are times when we are at par [in room rates] with Dubai and Abu Dhabi, however, it is not often the case given the inventory of rooms in the luxury sector,” says Ferghal Purcell, the general manager of the five-star Ajman Palace Hotel, which opened in 2013. Over the past three years, Starwood’s Luxury Collection Ajman Saray, HMH’s five-star Ajman Palace Hotel and the Fairmont Ajman opened on the beach, joining Ajman Kempinski, which opened in 1998, in the luxury segment.
There are two four-star properties in the emirate: Ramada Beach Hotel; and Ramada Hotel in the city.
Visitors from Russia, the CIS group of former Soviet Republics and Baltic states comprised the second-largest group of tourists to Ajman last year after Middle East tourists, excluding those from the UAE and the Arabian Gulf, according to the Ajman tourism board.
A majority of the leisure tourists to the hotels in Ajman book through the tour operators. Once there, they meet the representatives of the tour agencies and go on city tours. About 15 to 20 tour operators, such as Tez Tours and Alpha Tours, meet their clients in the hotels such as Ramada Beach.
The weak rouble has hit the Russian and CIS market hard, down by 30 per cent in the first three months this year compared with the last, says a representative of Tez Tours, who gives only the single name of Ramin.
The Ramada Beach Hotel and Ajman Palace are looking to tap into new markets such as Turkey, the Arabian Gulf, India and China.
“The CIS countries were our major source market, it still is, but the lost visitors were replaced by Turkey,” says Iftikhar Hamdani, the cluster general manager at Ramada Hotel and Suites Ajman and Ramada Beach Hotel Ajman. “The German market has increased and so has the corporate clients.”
At the Ramada Beach Hotel, tourist numbers from Russia and CIS declined by about 17 per cent during the first quarter, compared to the same period last year.
Mr Hamdani was among the delegation from Ajman tourism on a week-long China roadshow from May 23, visiting Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing, and met numerous tour agencies in each city. The delegation has also been to trade fairs such as the World Travel Market in London and the ITB Berlin. Mr Hamdani also expects to go on roadshows in eastern European countries such as Romania, Bulgaria and Poland.
Even as electricity connections have improved over the years and new malls have come up, the road infrastructure in Ajman is unable to cope with the peak traffic situations.
“Traffic during the peak hours is the biggest challenge,” acknowledges Mr Hamdani.
The situation needs to improve if the hospitality market is to grow.
The Ajman Government has signed a deal with White Lake Consortium to develop an international airport within Al Manama enclave, 52km east of Ajman City and half way to Khor Fakkan on the UAE’s east coast. The development will include a freezone, offices and hotels. Tenders for the Dh2.1 billion Ajman International Airport was issued last year. The airport, which is expected to be completed in 2018, could handle about 1 million passengers a year.
“Depending on how and when this materialises it is likely to prove a game changer for the emirate, although differentiated from its current seafront leisure orientation,” Mr Podaras says.
Despite the traffic, luxury hotel chains are cropping up and more are on the cards.
The Indian hotel company Oberoi and the Mauritian brand’s Lux Resorts hotel at the master developer Solidere International’s Al Zorah freehold are expected to open in the next two years.
These have come up while the Ajman tourism board completed classifying its hotels and hotel apartments according to the amenities they provide last year. The board itself was set up in 2012.
Hotel occupancy for the first quarter of this year was 70 per cent, according to the tourism board. Last year, the occupancy rate at Ajman hotels was 59.5 per cent, with the average room rates at Dh275.8, about half of the Dubai rates of Dh657.
At the end of last year, Ajman had 13 hotels accounting for 1,847 rooms, up from 11 in the previous year. The hotels reported 597,859 guests last year. The total number of guests who checked into hotel and hotel apartments last year was 850,000, up from 600,000 in 2013.
“Some of the challenges in drawing tourists to Ajman are lack of global awareness about the destination, need for greater family and entertainment attractions, a strong annual calendar of cultural and business events, and direct connectivity with feeder markets,” Mr Purcell says.
Hoteliers are upbeat that the situation will improve, especially with the Expo 2020.
“It would definitely mean very high occupancies in not just Dubai but in neighbouring emirates of Sharjah and Ajman too,” Mr Purcell says. “A lot of people will seek accommodation in Ajman for a better rate as well as to find availability of rooms in luxury hotels.”
But to be a more sustainable tourism destination, it needs to have an identity of its own, such as the Al Zorah community.
“Ajman needs to continue to develop a defensive strategy of being positioned close to Dubai but offering better value. But more importantly, for the longer term, [it needs to] evolve its own identity as a destination marketing its own attractions,” Mr Podaras says.
Back at the 107-room Ramada Beach Hotel, the executives talk about the growing freezones of Hamriyah in Sharjah, Sharjah Airport International Free Zone and Ajman Free Zone, the dry docks in Ajman and the affordability of the rooms that help attract both business and leisure tourists.
A five-bedroom penthouse for five couples at the hotel costs Dh5,000 in high season and Dh2,500, including taxes and breakfast, in the low season between May and September.
Mr El Amir says he will be back next month and will stay in Ajman.
“The traffic is in Dubai and Sharjah, not Ajman,” he says. “And If I don’t have anything to do in Dubai, I go to the beach [here].”
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