In conversation with Tyrone Lodder, General Manager, and Majed Yehya, Director of Sales & Marketing, Novotel Muscat Airport
Muscat: As Oman continues to establish tourism as a core pillar of economic diversification, attention tends to turn to new resorts and luxury projects. Yet a quieter shift of equal importance is under way in Muscat’s hospitality sector, led by hotels that build their services around business travel, events and short stays, and around the city’s own residents. In this conversation, Tyrone Lodder, General Manager of Novotel Muscat Airport, discusses where four-star hotels sit in a maturing tourism market and the role of meetings and conferences tourism in the growth of the area around the airport. Majed Yehya, the hotel’s Director of Sales & Marketing, then explains how guest expectations have changed and why hotel marketing is no longer limited to selling rooms.
Tyrone Lodder, General Manager: A Mature Market Needs Depth and Diversity
Tyrone Lodder believes today’s traveller has become increasingly deliberate about what they are willing to pay for. “Guests still expect quality, but quality is no longer measured simply by how many luxury elements a hotel can add. Increasingly, it is about whether the hotel understands why the guest is travelling and makes that journey easier.” It is an important distinction in a market where new hospitality supply continues to emerge across different segments.
He stresses that luxury is extremely important to Oman and fits naturally with many of the experiences the destination offers, “but a mature tourism market also needs depth and diversity. It needs accommodation at different price points and for different reasons for travel. A corporate traveller attending a two-day conference has very different priorities from someone spending a week at a resort.” This is where four-star hotels have an opportunity to compete through relevance to guests’ needs rather than extravagance.
Novotel Muscat Airport sits close to Muscat International Airport and the Oman Convention and Exhibition Centre, and offers 215 rooms and suites alongside meeting and event facilities. “We know what we are,” says Tyrone. “Our role isn’t to recreate a resort experience next to the airport. It is to make a business trip, an exhibition visit, a short stay or an event as seamless as possible. There is considerable value in doing something straightforward exceptionally well.”
Business Events as a Catalyst for Growth
Oman’s continued push into meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions is making hotels part of a broader business infrastructure. “An international conference doesn’t benefit one venue or one hotel,” Tyrone explains. “It creates a chain of economic activity: accommodation, transport, restaurants, suppliers, meeting facilities and often additional leisure activity around the visit.”
The proximity of Muscat International Airport, the Oman Convention and Exhibition Centre and the surrounding hotels gives the area growing potential to become a connected hub for business and events. “Our success is linked to the success of that wider ecosystem,” he adds. “The stronger Oman becomes as a destination for meetings and exhibitions, the more opportunity there is for the entire hospitality and service sector.”
The Airport Hotel as a Base for Getting Business Done
Tyrone believes the traditional definition of an airport hotel has become too narrow, particularly in a city such as Muscat. “The old perception is that an airport hotel is somewhere you sleep because you have an early flight,” he says. “That is still one reason people stay, but it is a very small definition of what these properties can be.” Corporate travellers, exhibition and meeting participants, airline-related business, short-stay visitors and local companies all contribute to growing demand in the area.
“We increasingly think about the hotel as a working base,” he says. “Someone may sleep here, meet here, attend an event nearby, have dinner with a client and leave for the airport the following morning. When all of those movements are easy, the hotel has done its job.”
Healthy Competition Starts with Understanding the Guest
Tyrone believes future competitiveness will depend on understanding what guests need rather than trying to be everything to everyone. “More competition is healthy because it forces every operator to define why a guest should choose them,” he says. “For us, the answer has to remain very clear: accessibility, reliability, good food, comfortable rooms, effective meeting facilities and service that respects people’s time.”
That may sound less glamorous than the race to build the next landmark resort, but in Tyrone’s view it is fundamental to a thriving visitor economy. “Oman’s tourism ambitions are broad, and its hospitality sector needs to be equally broad and diverse,” he concludes. “There is room for extraordinary luxury experiences, but there also has to be a strong layer of hotels that simply make travelling to Oman easy. That is an important part of how a destination grows.”
Majed Yehya, Director of Sales & Marketing: Beyond the Room Key
For years, hotel marketing followed a relatively predictable formula: rooms for travellers, restaurants for diners, and meeting and banqueting spaces for companies and families. That separation is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. According to Majed Yehya, hotels in Muscat are now competing for customers across a variety of occasions and moments in their lives, rather than simply serving an overnight stay.
“The person walking into a hotel today doesn’t necessarily have a suitcase,” says Majed. “They may be coming for a meeting, lunch, an event, a family occasion or simply because the hotel is convenient to where they need to be. That changes the way we have to think commercially.”
Value Before Stars
Star ratings remain relevant, Majed notes, but they have become just one factor in the decision. “Customers have become extremely good at weighing value against what they pay,” he explains. “They look at location, reviews, food, Wi-Fi, meeting facilities, convenience and price almost simultaneously. The question is no longer, ‘Is this a four-star or a five-star?’ It is, ‘Does this work for what I need today?’”
That shift strengthens the position of four-star hotels among business travellers who want quality but have little use for facilities that add cost without adding tangible value to their trip. “If someone is in Muscat for 48 hours, has several meetings and needs easy access to the airport or the Oman Convention and Exhibition Centre, convenience has an economic value,” he adds. “Saving time can matter more than adding another luxury touchpoint.”
He observes that companies have become more focused on efficiency, flexibility and the overall value of a trip. “Companies are paying closer attention to travel spend, but that doesn’t automatically mean choosing the cheapest option. What they want is a sensible return on that spend. Location, meeting capability, food, reliability and the ability to move efficiently between the airport, hotel and business commitments all become part of the calculation.” That is reflected in the marketing itself: “The traditional sales pitch was heavily focused on the room. Increasingly, we’re selling the efficiency of the entire stay.”
Muscat Residents and Families: A Market That Doesn’t Need a Room Booking
The commercial opportunity for hotels is no longer limited to occupied rooms. “The local market changes the economics of a hotel,” says Majed. “A Muscat resident may never stay overnight with us and still become a regular customer. They can attend events, use the restaurants, hold meetings, organise celebrations and recommend the hotel to colleagues visiting the city.”
This is pushing hotels to think more like consumer businesses. For a hotel that people have traditionally associated with travellers because of its location, the opportunity lies in building stronger ties with the surrounding communities and businesses, and with families too. The restaurants, swimming pool and leisure facilities give it a role beyond business trips, and its location makes it a practical choice for families on a short stay in Muscat or passing through the city. Majed believes the task is to communicate that breadth while keeping the hotel’s core value proposition clear.
“We want parents and children to feel just as welcome and comfortable as a business traveller,” he says. “The word ‘airport’ can sometimes create the impression that a hotel belongs primarily to travellers. One of our commercial priorities is changing that perception. We are part of Muscat, and we want the hotel to be of value to the people who live and work around us as well.”
Loyalty Starts with Consistency
Majed believes customer loyalty comes from everyday reliability more than from occasional exceptional gestures. “Consistency is the foundation,” he says. “Hospitality sometimes becomes obsessed with creating one extraordinary moment. But for a frequent traveller, knowing that check-in will be efficient, the room will be ready, breakfast will be good, the meeting will start on time and somebody will solve a problem when it arises can be far more powerful.”
“We don’t necessarily need to promise our guests more,” he concludes. “We need to understand them better. The hotels that succeed will be the ones that become genuinely useful to the people they serve, whether that person is arriving on a flight, attending a conference, meeting a colleague for coffee or living just ten minutes away.”
