SCTDA organises training workshop to help Sharjah hotels benefit from Olery performance monitoring tool

H.E. Khalid Jasim Al Midfa, Director General of Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development Authority (SCTDA), has stressed that the Authority is keen to develop the services provided by the hotel sector in Sharjah by providing upscale facilities for tourists in the emirate. As part of its continuous cooperation SCTDA holds regular meetings with hotel managers to discuss the opportunities and challenges in the hospitality segment, and organises inspections to increase the performance of the sector to the highest international standards, H.E. Al Midfa said.

The Director General stated this on the occasion of training workshop by Olery, a leading travel data provider in the Middle East, organised by SCTDA for a group of Sharjah hotels to allow the hospitality sector to benefit from a tool that will help monitor the performance of hotels round the clock.
The workshop at the Sharjah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) was attended by more than 70 representatives from Sharjah hotels, and follows an agreement signed between SCTDA and Olery aimed at activating the tool to contribute to the development of the hospitality sector.

H.E. Khalid Jasim Al Midfa, Director General of SCTDA, said: This workshop is the first of a series of workshops aimed at raising awareness in the hospitality sector in Sharjah about benefiting from key industry data.

H.E. Al Midfa said: We look forward to cooperation from everyone in the hospitality sector to activate this important tool, which will produce data, and plans, that can be used to achieve scientific and systematic development of the sector. It will further contribute to growing Sharjahs market share in the global tourism market to achieve the Sharjah Tourism Vision 2021 that aims to attract 10 million tourists by 2021.

Olerys hospitality monitoring system draws on traveller and guest reviews from top 10 international booking websites to provide accurate, real-time and online insights into the performance and standing of hotels and other accommodation facilities individually as well as for Sharjah as destination. It offers a ready, dashboard analysis with comments and feedback of guests and customers, offering the stakeholders a quick and comprehensive overview.

Olery will submit reports to the SCTDA, assessing the status of each facility based on visitor comments. In addition, it will send daily alerts, comments and reviews of guests at the hotels that wish to subscribe to this system. The reports will comprise proposals on developing services and highlight the positive and negative aspects of each facility according to the visitors' experience. SCTDA will evaluate these reports and follow-up with appropriate actions, especially on issues attracting negative criticism.

For benchmarking, the system relies on the Guest Experience Index, the scientifically backed quality measure in the hospitality industry developed by Olery in cooperation with the VU University, Amsterdam. The proprietary algorithm takes several ratings, results from sentiment analysis and the reliability of review sources into account.