Buoyancy in Middle East hospitality sector fuels uptake in enterprise solutions, says Scala

Giving an industry-specific analysis of the uptake of hospitality solutions in the UAE and the region in general, a senior spokesperson of Scala Middle East said that the hotel and resort industry was now fully awake to the benefits that technology can bring in, particularly in the context of increasing competition in the region's tourism industry, growing at a faster pace than anywhere else in the world.

Mr. Ziad Aqrabawi, Regional Managing Director of the Dubai Internet City-based Scala Business Solutions Middle East said: "The rapid growth in the adoption of enterprise solutions by regional hospitality players follows the healthy forecast by global tourism bodies like the World Tourism Organisation (WTO) which has predicted that Middle East's tourism industry will be 50 per cent higher than the world's average by 2020."

He said the regional hospitality industry now demand more sophistication and compared to the earlier need of sundry software integrated with PMS (Property Management Solutions), the changing trend now is increased investment in Integrated Information Management Systems (IMIS) which links POS (Point of Sale Systems), CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and back office applications like financial reporting, materials management etc. in a seamless fashion.

"Precisely because we have addressed this change, the uptake of sector-focused Scala Hospitality, a cutting-edge IMIS tool, has been on the rise in the region, particularly in countries like the UAE where tourism and hospitality are two dynamic sectors contributing a significant share to the GDP," Mr. Aqrabawi said.

Scala Hospitality, which supports a range of industry-specific functions like daily sales and statistics report, daily market list, cost per cover, revenue per available room etc. has been widely accepted in the region and world over and presently it is has an installed base of 350 hotels in 48 countries. Since Scala Hospitality is scaleable and allows a high degree of customization, the solution has been localized in over 60 countries.

In the Middle East, Scala Hospitality is used by a number of hospitality players including Hyatt International, Sheraton and RadissonSAS among others.

Commenting on the advantages Scala Hospitality brings into a competitive hospitality scenario, Mr. Fraidy Pinto, Regional IT Manager, RadissonSAS said: "Integration of different systems is the buzz word now and Scala Hospitality addresses critical areas of operations like management efficiency, resource allocation and bottomline performance and information reporting seamlessly."

He said Scala Hospitality can provide customized information generated from anywhere in the world throughout the enterprise chain which can then be drilled down for in-depth analysis. "Most importantly the tool ensures standardization across the chain with features such as multi-dimensional coding, multi-currency, budgeting and simulation."

Commenting on the growing potential of the hospitality market, Mr. Aqrabawi said it would take a long time before the market becomes saturated for enterprise players considering the ebullient forecast made by global expert bodies monitoring the Middle East.

"WTO statistics have forecast that Middle East tourism will touch an annual 7.1 per cent until 2020 against the world's average of 4.1 per cent. The region had posted a growth of 10 per cent in tourist arrivals in 2003, during a period when world over the growth was negative, and 17 per cent in 2002. Places like Dubai had stunned the world in 2002 posting a 31 per cent in tourist arrivals," he said.

He said demand for hospitality solutions can only boom considering developments like The Palm and other projects in Dubai and in places like Qatar, Bahrain, Egypt and Jordan.