When Ahmed Ramdan first went to work he took the road less travelled for a UAE national in the ‘70s and ‘80s – tourism.
With “no interest” in becoming a doctor or lawyer, and a “non-conformist” attitude, he became one of the few Emiratis of his generation to climb the hospitality ladder.
“My family were not exactly happy with my choice of what was a totally unknown industry and career,” he says. “Today they are very pleasantly surprised.”
When he started in the hotel world, Mr Ramdan, now 56, says, hotels were associated with “nightclubbing and drinking”.
“Try to imagine Dubai in 1973 when the first landmark luxury property – the InterContinental Dubai [now the Radisson Blu in Deira] – was built,” he says. “We only had a handful of hotels in the whole country.”
In 1998, after decades working as a manager in the InterContinental and Le Meridien chains, Mr Ramdan set up Roya, a hospitality advisory firm based at the office tower of the Shangri-La Hotel in Dubai, which is one of its clients.
Roya acts as an intermediary between local hotel owners and international operators. It operates mostly in the region but also as far as Barcelona and Belarus.
Now Mr Ramdan is banging the drum for hospitality, on a mission to bring more Emiratis into the industry.
“Many young Emiratis do not see themselves as anything but a traveller staying or dining in the hotel,” he says. “They and their families prefer traditional professions. They do not see that the hospitality field has careers that cover engineering, architecture, accounting, marketing – not just the classical path of F&B [food and beverage] to general manager.”
He also says he thinks it is the “responsibility of younger generations to embrace the sector”.
“It’s not going away, it’s not temporary”, he says. “It’s a growing industry.”
Tourism contributed Dh134 billion to the country, almost 9 per cent of 2015’s GDP, according to Sultan Al Mansouri, the Minister of Economy. It is estimated to reach Dh237bn by 2026.
Yet Oxford Strategic Consulting’s UAE employment report this year found that tourism and hospitality was one of the least attractive sectors for Emiratis – just 23 per cent of them said they were interested in working in the industry: 29 per cent for women and 18 per cent for men. Only agriculture, manufacturing and aerospace fared worse.
Hiring a UAE national is “more sustainable” than an expat, he says – and expats are becoming “more and more expensive”. “Hotels somehow have the wrong impression that UAE nationals do not want to work in hotels, hospitality, they cannot be trained.”
There are only one or two hotel schools here, says Mr Ramdan, and no Emirati internship programmes. Operators also need to take more time to talk to university students and explain the career paths available in hospitality.
Jumeirah has the highest number of UAE nationals of any UAE hotel chain, he says, and the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority is also working on a nationalisation programme. “But it needs to be pushed harder,” he adds.
Unlike other Gulf countries such as Oman and Bahrain, says Mr Ramdan, the UAE has no enforced quotas to hire nationals into hospitality and tourism. Operators need to hire locally before the government decides to impose any. He does not believe quotas are the solution.
The Emiratis who choose hostelry are “exceptionally warm, friendly and hospitable”, he says.
Two of those are Abdulreza Aziz Abdullah, 27, and Mariam Ahmad, 21. Mr Abdullah is a health club and spa service leader at the Shangri-La, while Ms Ahmad is a receptionist at the spa.
Mr Abdullah, a native of Dubai whose brothers are policemen, says people approach him to ask about Dubai and about Emirati culture when they see him wearing his kandura.
He was studying electrical engineering when his mother, a security guard at the hotel, persuaded him to take a job there six years ago. His English was “so bad” when he joined and he did not like the 4.30am starts.
But he says he really warmed to it after six months and now, having resumed his studies, hopes to work his way up to manager and perhaps then work in engineering at the hotel. Certainly, he has no plans to leave.
Ms Ahmad, who says she is the “smallest” at the hotel, joined on her 21st birthday, having previously worked as a guest ambassador at the Burj Khalifa. She says she has grown to “love this place” and is no longer shy with guests.
She wants to rotate between departments, now that she has been at the hotel for a year, and is looking at security. As an Emirati, she says, “we need to be in hospitality. People are happy to see us in the hotels. You’re getting business for your country.”
Both think the rosters and weekend working can put their peers off but that the salary is competitive with government jobs. Both say that working in tourism has done a great deal for their confidence, customer service, and their English.
Mr Ramdan’s own children – two girls, 11 and five, and a boy, 10 – are still young but he says they come to work with him occasionally. He has them clear their own plates at home and order the meals when the family goes out to restaurants.
Perhaps in a decade, the next generation of Ramdans will be leading their peers into the industry.
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