What started as a playground for the rich and the famous, is now becoming one of Abu Dhabi’s top family destinations.
Yas Marina is no longer just a place to berth your superyacht and indulge your friends during the Abu Dhabi F1 Grand Prix.
Although the F1 race remains Yas Marina’s greatest calling card, this enchanting property on Yas Island has widened its appeal and is attracting crowds during the other 51 weeks as well.
There have been a series of enhancement and expansion activities carried out at Yas Marina, and under the guidance of General Manager Cedric Le Rest, who has been with the property from its preopening stage, it boasts several F&B and entertainment areas to suit all age categories.
Le Rest, who first came to the UAE in 1998, spoke to Joy Chakravarty on what prompted the change of business plan for Yas Marina, the importance of the F1 week, and where they are heading in the future.
Q A lot of activity has taken place in the past couple of years at Yas Marina. Tell us about what’s going on?
A In 2011, Camper and Nicholsons took over the management of the property on behalf of the marina owners and from there on, Yas Marina has evolved every year. In 2013, we decided to make a few changes – first to our pricing structure, because compared to the other marinas, our rates were too high.
So, we dropped the rates and we worked on the occupancy rate. This worked very well between 2012 and 2013 as we went pretty much from 19 boats to 100 boats within a year. For us, it was an excellent upward curve.
We then decided to focus on an actual planned facility, including restaurants and the outside area and so on. We worked for almost six months on the enhancement of the property and we reopened the Marina in mid-October last year, just before the F1, and we now have seven licensed restaurants, from a sports bar to a Spanish bar, to Thai seafood, Lebanese and an Italian restaurant, as well as a French-German bakery.
Apart from the restaurants, we have a kids area, a dancing fountain, 200 meters of promenade, and events area we have become a destination in Abu Dhabi not only for people who own boats, but also for people who want to spend some quality family time together.
It’s a buzzing area now.
We have been delighted with the results so far after we reopened. It feels like Abu Dhabi was waiting for something like this.
As a business, is that a new route you are taking?
Absolutely. A marina, by itself, is not sustainable. That’s why we have to do all these things around the marina.
We have the F&B areas, and we organise quite a lot of events. We have weekly events like dedicated ladies day, we have kids movie evening on Fridays, and on Saturdays, we have the market.
Then we have signature watersport events like introducing people to wakeboard, paddleboard etc. We had the dragonboat and paddleboard events.
We needed to expand our customer base, and we have managed to do that.
How important is the Abu Dhabi F1 Grand Prix to your business?
F1 obviously is the main event for us, certainly for the whole of the island, as well as for Abu Dhabi city.
We have been very pleased with the way the occupancy went up during the F1 week. There has been a steady increase, even during the difficult years like 2010. I must admit that 2013 was an amazing year for us, probably because of the enhancement to the property.
What has helped is that Yas Marina is open to the public even during the race week. You can’t have a view of the race, but you can surely get a feel of the atmosphere. On a very safe estimate, we had about 16,000 people at Yas Marina on the Sunday of the race.
The entire team did a great job, especially during the race.
There are a lot of logistics involved and the eyes of the entire industry are on you. You’ve got to be ready for 220 boats in the marina and for 16,000 people coming to your property on one day.
When you look at the big picture, we are a very small stakeholder, but we like to believe we have played a small but significant part in the success of the Abu Dhabi F1 Grand Prix.
Of course, it is a very important week, but we have to take care of the 51 other weeks as well. We have to make sure that our level of service remains of that class for the rest of the year too.
What is the capacity of the marina now?
We have now got 192 berths, up from 143 when we started the extensions. Yas Marina is unique because we have got a wide range of berths. That was not the case two years ago, when we had a range from 15 metres up to 150m. But we quickly realised that a lot of small boat owners (six to 10 metres) wanted to have a berth.
It wasn’t making sense in terms of operations. So, we decided to have an extension in 2012, and then another second extension last year. We increased the capacity of the marina, which again is a great sign that the industry is doing well now after a few rough years.
You have done a lot in the past couple of years. But what are your future plans?
We have just now come out of an expansion phase and are now focusing on maintaining worldclass service to our customers.
The only thing we do not have on site is maintenance. We do it through third party agreements in Abu Dhabi. So, having our own maintenance area is something that we will look at in the future, but not at the moment.
What happens during the F1 week to your annual members?
Well, the annual berth includes the F1. That obviously is one of the selling points for the marina. When you look at our rates, they are quite competitive with the other marinas in the region, but the F1 is a big bonus that only we can offer.
What would it cost if someone wants to book space at Yas Marina during the F1 week?
We started the pre-booking during the Dubai International Boat Show and the response has been very good. If you book now, we put you on a list and then start contacting people around August.
There has been a huge demand, and while for smaller boats, it is not that much of an issue, for those that are 25m and above, and who want to be closer to the track and see the cars race by, those berths are very limited.
Our rates start from Dh11,435 for the week, and you receive a certain number of passes with that, which gives you access not only to the marina, but also to the concerts and the pit walk.
You said you had 192 berths, but you hosted 220 boats during the F1. How was that done?
It can be done. Especially that week, because once the boats come in, they do not go out for the whole time. So, we can plan ahead and make additional space depending on their sizes. With good planning, you can actually increase a marina’s capacity by 10-15 per cent.
What are you expecting this year during the F1 week?
Definitely more than 220 boats this year. This year’s race is quite amazing because Abu Dhabi is the last race of the season, double points and so on, and you can already feel that the interest is huge.
We say it every year, but 2014 is surely going to be our biggest year yet.
