Shadi Moazami, previous Director of PR & Communications for Jumeirah Group’s Dubai hotels has launched MAIA, a Brand Communications consultancy set up in Dubai for hotels, dining and luxury brands.
Prior to her role at Jumeirah Group, she also worked at a number of local and global agencies, so knows the realities of leading divisions of bigger agencies, as well as her own in-house team at Jumeirah Group.
Since launching MAIA in October 2019, she has won a number of clients from hotels, restaurants, home-grown luxury brands and culture brands.
Although there’s no doubt that times are challenging for small businesses right now, she still believes it’s a good time for those in the local hospitality industry to work with smaller consultancies who have the experience and flexibility to make a difference for them through brand communications and marketing, at a time when it’s needed the most.
Rather than sticking with rigid deliverables to be ticked off each month, MAIA’s unique approach to the partnership allows brands to access to collaborative strategic counsel, alongside quality senior execution, in return for achieving commercial KPIs.
Speaking about the current climate for hospitality due to Covid-19 – Shadi Moazami said: “We all know the world is going through a lot of upheaval, and that the future is uncertain for us all. However, this shouldn’t stop hospitality brands (be that hotels or F&B outlets) being optimistic/opportunistic about change. Once things open up, there is huge potential for domestic tourism and F&B businesses, with many guests and customers looking to have quality experiences with close friends and family, to reconnect with nature (summer heat permitting!) and enjoy experiences away from the masses – whilst remaining as sustainable as possible… is that such a bad thing?
She continued: ‘Whilst budgets will certainly be much lower, it’s time for consultancies to adapt scopes of work to focus on whatever it takes to ease the challenge for their clients. MAIA has experience in adapting client’s internal and crisis strategies through maximising their existing resources, and I am confident other small agencies or consultancies can do the same, as long as they are agile and flexible in their thinking.
Brand positioning, crisis and internal communications also remain as important as ever and transparency and empathy must be at the heart of any organisations approach. The world is in this together, so why not embrace the opportunity and get closer to customers? They will certainly appreciate it – and in-turn support clients better in the long-run.”
