He said ‘Yas’ to celebrities, technologies & events

‘From nothing’ is a phrase that comes to mind when I think about the dynamic transformation that Yas Island saw in just a few years. What was a 25 square kilometre stretch of barren, empty land, has today, transmogrified into an entertainment paradise, housing the Formula One racetrack, Ferrari World, Warner Brothers Theme Parks and SeaWorld Abu Dhabi, among others. Propelling the region to become the fastest growing theme park destination in the world, Yas Island is certainly putting Abu Dhabi on the global leisure and entertainment map.

In an exclusive interview with RetailME Mohamed Al Zaabi, CEO of Miral Asset Management, the company tasked with overseeing the management and business of Yas Island and now, Saadiyat Island, shared his ambitious plans for the region’s leisure and entertainment sector.

Mohamed Al Zaabi joined the company in 2015 and was given the job to position Yas Island as a top global destination for entertainment, leisure and business through immersive experiences and world-class attractions. Through his leadership, Miral has invested over AED9 billion into completed projects on Yas Island successfully forging key business partnerships with some of the world’s most recognisable leisure and entertainment brands.

Marketing gets louder, funnier, grander

“Today’s market and changing consumer behaviour encourages us to change and adapt our marketing plans,” Al Zaabi said. “Hence the team came with different campaigns like Stayin’ On Yas and Yas Yas Baby, which touched all generations, in a way that the younger generation would also find interesting and relevant.”

Miral, along with its subsidiary, Experience Hub, which is the trade and promotional arm of Yas and Saadiyat Island have been constantly and consistently evolving their marketing and outreach campaigns. The mission has always been to position itself as a leading international entertainment and leisure destination. The campaigns were done with the view to achieve some specific targets – increase visitation by widening market share, increase length of stay and grow awareness across different regions to become a holistic destination of choice.

Considering the market is competitive and cluttered, the campaigns needed to stand out, and appeal to different generations. Now, have these been successful from a financial and revenue standpoint, considering how expensive they have been?

“We are not aggressive when it comes to our business plan. We are conservative. However, we are achieving the targets,” he said. And these targets aren’t purely monetary. “Our main mission is to promote Abu Dhabi and Yas Island as an international destination.”

Another metric of success for Al Zaabi is length of stay within the island. He talks about this dreamy vision he has for a family visiting the island, where the husband could be seen playing Golf, the wife winding down in the spa and the kids enjoying in the theme parks or play area securely. “The success of the island is reflected in the fact that visitors don’t find the need to go outside the island or even use a car,” he said.

Data tells you all

Along with marketing and outreach campaigns Miral has been very smart about using data. “In 2016, we started our data transformation journey with the idea to create a data warehouse where all the customer information is centralised in one place for us to read it better. Based on this, we can come up with personalised experiences,” Al Zaabi said.

Miral launched its Decision Analytics Strategy- the Noor Initiative last year, with an aim to strengthen business efficiency and productivity, whilst delivering better personalised experiences for local and international visitors.

As an example of using data efficiently, he mentioned, “We learnt that customers that are fans of Wonder Woman would also buy Supergirl merchandise. So, we put all such products next to each other and that increased our sales by 60%.”

[Interview by Shruthi Nair]

Read the full story in the October edition of RetailME