The Middle East Goes Back To Its Glamping Roots

The pandemic affected hospitality all over the world and the Middle East was no exception. However, while some coastal resorts had to offer incentives to fill rooms, the glamping sector was bucking the trend. Chris Nader is one of the few hospitality experts who focuses on the glamping movement in the MENA region. Steph Curtis-Raleigh caught up with Chris about developments in the region and what a Middle Eastern staycationer is looking for.

Chris Nader has been in the industry for about 14 years and hails from a family involved in the hotel industry. His first move to the Middle East followed his MBA from the Lausanne hotel school in Switzerland. He joined Kempinski Hotels who had launched a new brand called Shaza Hotels focusing on the luxury Middle Eastern market.

“My journey started there, launching the brand and finding investors to develop culturally-sensitive hotels in the region. We had to create everything from scratch, including positioning, branding, concepts. Many years later, when we first started speaking about canvas tents, people thought it was like camping, sharing a bathroom with others. I told them – no, it’s like a luxury villa, but instead of concrete walls, it was canvas. These tents could achieve rates of £300-£500 a night, but few investors believed me.”

Nader realised that the timing was right – people were more interested in getting back to nature and of course the region has a history of tented camps dating back to the Bedouins, so many were also going back to their roots.

“During the weekdays, the few glamping resorts in the UAE started getting really full. And I saw most of them continuing to be full throughout 2020,” says Nader. “It was just unbelievable, while other types of hospitality assets in the region were struggling, glamping resorts were witnessing very high room rates.

Nader is now an independent consultant in the field of glamping and experiential hospitality in the Middle East but it was the Whitepod project in Switzerland which really sparked his passion when he stayed at the resort in 2011. “Whitepod was a ground-breaking project in the mid-2000s,” says Chris. “Bringing similar concepts to the Middle East would have been great at that time, but investors were not ready yet for such an alternative resort.”

Nader enjoys the challenges of bringing the luxurious hotel experience to a tented camp. “You can’t use the same materials in construction, you can’t use the same standard operating procedures. Plus, what was very interesting was that the environmental restrictions in which such projects are built, forcing us to be very creative, and we try to adjust and adapt,” he says.

If the room rates seem incredibly high, it’s worth remembering that in the region there is no income tax, and many people earn comfortable salaries, so the domestic market has a high propensity to spend, including for staycations. With many people choosing to live on the coast, Nader says the attraction of glamping is to go to remote locations, especially the desert and mountains.

People want new experiences. Mainstream resorts are more predictable. There is rarely an element of surprise.

“People want new experiences. Mainstream resorts are more predictable. There is rarely an element of surprise. First of all, these resorts are mostly on the coasts of the UAE where most of us live. So, when you go there on a staycation you don’t really feel like you are on holiday as you have the same backdrop, you are in your own backyard,” he says. “So taking people up on a mountain, or down in the desert and giving them this luxury experience – it’s really interesting to a lot of residents.”

The trend for luxury desert eco-focused resorts actually started even before glamping. “About 20 years ago, we started seeing some very interesting resorts in the deserts. And these are not at all glamping. They’re actually concrete constructions with various types of units. They became very popular and some of them had some sort of sustainability elements to them as well. They were an instant success and remain very popular to this day.”

“And then slowly, around three years ago, the first few projects that had a glamping element to them started seeing the light here in the UAE, including the northern Emirate of Ras al Khaimah and Sharjah and Dubai,” he adds.

In addition – the term glamping has suddenly become better known within the Middle East as it caught the attention of local press and media. “Only last year, I noticed that people started to speak about it – not everyone understands its nuances but it’s a buzz word.

“We have started to see some tents, some bubbles, some domes and all of these have different levels of luxury, of glam one could say,” he adds. “But the funny thing was that they were almost all an instant success and could command rates higher than most five-star resorts. Outside of this UAE market, I guess the most remarkable growth in glamping projects came from Jordan, which took off before the UAE, and specifically in the desert where we started seeing so many domes and tents and other alternative resorts, which of course ended up on Instagram and started the whole thing off.”

Nader notes that the different Emirates have positioned themselves at different levels of luxury and want to attract different types of markets. “Some of them are aiming at the adventure travel market, some are more on the glamour and luxury side, others are focused on exploration and culture. So, at the moment, we have quite a diverse offering here in the region.” “Abu Dhabi is also picking up on the trend,” adds Nader. “There have been three projects which have come to life quite recently – two with domes, one by the beach and one in the mountain, and a third one which opened during the pandemic featuring canvas tents. And they’re all charging around 200 to 500 pounds a night.”

So who are the guests who pay these incredible rates and when do they like to stay? Those outside the region might not realise that actually this is also a seasonal market – albeit with winter being preferable for outdoor lodging, as summer temperatures are so high.

“We have a very good season between mid-October to about the middle of April,” says Nader. “We have many holidays as well which is good, we get the best of both worlds, we have the Middle Eastern holidays and many international companies also giver extra days off for some of the European holidays. And then temperatures start rising above 40-45 degrees Celsius in summer. If you’re in the desert, it’s difficult to attract guests at this time. The number one condition would be a private pool that is temperature controlled. Otherwise it would be like jumping into a hot jacuzzi which is not what you want!”

Pools that can be cooled in summer and heated in winter (when temperatures can get quite low) are a given and that is quite a challenge for a camp which is off grid. “It’s quite a consideration for us from a technical standpoint as you can imagine,” says Nader. “How do you heat and cool those pools? Do you use generators that cost a fortune to run because you’re not connected to the municipality grid? So, you need to look at independent energy sources. Investors are certainly becoming more interested in renewables and sustainability but it’s a big start-up investment. Some of the groups and investors are slowly coming round to them but there’s still some work to be done.”

What happened when COVID started is that people discovered that they could work from anywhere that had the necessary technology. Of course, they could do that before, but COVID made them actually realise it.

The guests themselves are varied – some resorts are family oriented while others are adults only. International tourists make up some of the numbers, while business travellers and team building groups from companies are markets that glamping resorts should focus on to fill their week days. However, according to Nader, despite this, before COVID, weekdays could be slow.

“What happened when COVID started is that people discovered that they could work from anywhere that had the necessary technology. Of course, they could do that before, but COVID made them actually realise it. ‘I don’t need to be sitting in a boring office, but I can be by the beach in a beautiful tent… I can even have my family here enjoying it too, while I work and enjoy the amazing view,’. So during the weekdays, these resorts started getting really full. And I saw most of them being full throughout 2020,” adds Nader.

As for the future, Nader feels that environmental considerations will become increasingly important for the region. “Recently, my discussions with investors is as much about sustainability as the resorts,” he says. “Every government here in the Middle East is really addressing this issue and the GCC is really pushing investors to go down the sustainability route.”

“So, the first step was for governments to put eco strategies in place, especially on eco tourism, to move away from the construction of large mainstream hotels that have been built, left, right and centre at a super high pace since the early 2000s,” he adds. “They are now looking to shift their construction, positioning and investment into something that is more sustainable. So they started more and more getting interested in eco resorts, eco lodges, retreats, and remote locations. In these discussions, the word glamping is used with caution because not all types of experiential projects can be labelled as such.”

Chris Nader