Hospitality & Travel · 18 Aug 2026
Nadia Kassem
Managing Director, Middle East · Meridian Hospitality Group
“Luxury in this region is no longer about what a property has. It is about what only that property can offer.”
Nadia KassemManaging Director, Middle East
Meridian Hospitality Group
Meridian Hospitality Group
With twenty years in regional hospitality, Nadia Kassem discusses the shift from scale to experience, the economics of cultural programming, and why she no longer competes on rate.
- What changed in the last three years?
- Guests stopped comparing properties and started comparing experiences. Two hotels can have identical rooms and completely different demand, based entirely on programming.
- Does that justify the investment?
- It does when it is sustained. A single festival changes nothing. A three-year cultural calendar builds an audience that returns without a campaign behind it.
- What is the biggest operational challenge?
- Talent with cultural fluency. We can train service standards. We cannot train someone to understand what a Gulf family expects from a Friday, or what an international collector expects from a private viewing.
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