New Dubai hotel to be 80 percent run by women aims to be Shariah-compliant

Photo: Time Hotels Management announcing its new Time Asma Hotel at Arabian Travel Market Dubai on April 24, 2017. The hotel in Barsha, Dubai, UAE, is scheduled to be opened by Q4 2017. Seated from left to right are CEO Mohamed Awadalla, Time Asma Hotel general manager Ghada Mahgoub, and Time Asma Hotel Vice President Dr Sheikha Noori Jaber

UAE-based halal and dry hotel chain Time will open a new property in Dubai that will be run by women for women-only facilities to cater to the growing family- and Muslim-friendly market.

“Our target is to be Shariah-compliant,” Dr Sheikha Noori Jaber, Vice President of the planned four-star Time Asma Hotel, told Salaam Gateway.

Two floors of the six-storey 232-room hotel will be reserved for female guests. Other facilities include women-only check-in lines, gym, spa, and salon.

Time Hotels Management CEO Mohamed Awadalla said the management team of the new establishment will be “100 percent” women working with an operations team that is at least 80 percent female.

According to Awadalla, the company will find it difficult to recruit women for jobs that require lifting of heavy furniture and for certain departments such as engineering, kitchen, and housekeeping.

The hotel will provide career opportunities for more than 100 women, he said.

Time Asma is scheduled to open in the last quarter of this year and recruitment for all positions will start in about two months, said its general manager Ghada Mahgoub to Salaam Gateway.

Mahgoub is aiming for an above average occupancy rate. “Our occupancy rate is normally 80 to 85 percent all year round. I’m going for more than 90 percent occupancy,” she said.

The company will take a wait-and-see approach before considering any expansion of the Time Asma Hotel model. “If it succeeds here, why not? I’d love to [export it overseas], especially in Qatar. I think it will work there,” said Awadalla.

Female-staffed hotels are not new. In 2008, the women-owned, women-managed, and women-run 25-room Luthan Hotel and Spa for women opened in the Saudi capital Riyadh.

In Dubai, female-staffed women-only floors can be found in several hotels including Jumeirah Emirates Towers Hotel’s 2005-launched Chopard Floor, and most recently Dukes Dubai’s Duchess Floor. Both target primarily female business and solo travellers.

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