Subject: Dhaka Regency e-Newsletter July-December 2011
From: "Dhaka Regency Hotel & Resort" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: 13 Feb 2012 17:39:59 +0600

e Newsletter

Dear Readers,

As always, a host of events have taken place to keep us busy and able to provide a lot of new materials for
you to enjoy. Apart from festivals and promotions, highlight of this quarter was the very successful cocktail
and dinner party for our industry cohorts. The hotel can also proudly inform you on a little charity and
employee benefits that we took part in. All in all, it was a steady and successful quarter for us and we hope
you will appreciate our developments.

Saturday Brunch Takes Flight

We keep coming back to the Saturday Brunch every quarter and you must be wondering why. The reason is simple. Just like a brunch buffet, this extravagant promotion of ours is taking shape of enormous proportions. Just earlier this year we decided to make it the ultimate family pack offer with our “Kids Eat Free” promotion, where every child under 12 years of age with one paying adult guest gets to enjoy their meal complimentary. And now, for this summer only, we also included a raffle draw program to our favorite weekend day

Only in the month of July, every paid guest joining the feast at the Saturday Brunch had the opportunity to participate in the raffle draw whereby winners could win Roundtrip Airlines Tickets to Mumbai or Milan from Jet Airways. Needless to say, patrons of Grandiose Restaurant were highly impressed and appreciative of our initiatives to add more values to an already wonderfully bundled product.

A Very Festive Ramadan

The holy month of Ramadan this year brought much good fortune and fame for Dhaka Regency. No stones were left unturned in reaping the most benefit from this month-long festivity. The first and foremost success of the season were our collaborations with The City Bank American Express and Standard Chartered Bank, whereby AMEX and SCB credit cardholders were entitled to an exclusive “Buy 1 Get 1 Free” offer on our popular Iftar plus Dinner Buffet at the Grandiose Restaurant. Dhaka Regency makes it a point never to turn away any patron during the pious hours of breaking fast during this time of the year. So instead, when we began incurring last minute walk-in guests during iftar hours much beyond our capacity, we had to actually extend our restaurant to the nearest event venue! Well, there you have it. The good food, good service, and great offer spoke for itself during the rush hours of August 2011 in a shower of revenue and appreciation from all our guests.

As always, this holy month began with a bit of charity of our own. This year, Dhaka Regency began the month by hosting an iftar celebration with the special children of Al-Madrasatun Nuria & Orphanage. 55 children of this special care institute arrived with stars in their eyes, slightly nervous and slightly excited, to see what we had in store for them. And our management team was ready to receive them with warm smiles and open hospitality. The evening began with a short recitation from the Holy Qur’an and a welcome message from our Executive Director Mr. Shahid Hamid FIH. As the echos of the azaan filled the air, the children and our management broke fast in unision. Following consuming the sumptuous banquet prepared for everyone, our Mr. Hamid presented the children with punjabis and tupis for the upcoming Eid celebration.

A similar party was held for our staffs too. As Ramadan generally promotes unity amongst our fellow men, a gathering of fun and festivity was definitely in order. So on the last week of the holy month, all Regencians gathered in our newly renovated Celebration Hall to partake in this joyous activity together amid a flow of happy conversations and wonderful feast.

Ramadan also benefitted us with the opportunity to gain some month long mileage on national television. In collaboration with popular television channel RTV, Dhaka Regency’s expert chefs appeared every Thursday night during Ramadan and well into the Eid holiday seasons.

Shab-e-Barat

Though not the general rule of the Middle East, the South Asian continent follows an age-old tradition of sweet distribution to friends, family and neighbors alike on the Holy Shab-e-Barat, better known as Halua Bili. Unfortunately, few and fewer still households today practice this fun convention. For two years running, Dhaka Regency recaptured this tradition by distributing extravagant packages of traditional sweets made by our expert kitchen crew to our special business clients and media associates. This novel use of this antiquated custom had every party on the receiving end pleasantly surprised and appreciative. As can be seen, Dhaka Regency continues to do its bit for hospitality and tourism by noticing and highlighting the little colorful aspects our cultural spectrum.

Signing With The Daily Star

The leading English newspaper in Bangladesh, The Daily Star, recently approached Dhaka Regency to sign a partnership contract to mutually promote each other to the respective market of each. While Dhaka Regency has agreed to distribute The Daily Star as its primary English newspaper to its in-house guests, The Daily Star has begun a new hospitality column to better support the hotel through greater media coverage. On August 1, 2011, the hotel formally entered into the MOU through a signing ceremony among notable personalities of the hospitality and media industries present.

Dhaka Regency Welcomes Gulf Air and Air Arabia

The month July was a month of acquisitions. After many months of wooing and building up a fruitful relationship, our Sales & Marketing team finally managed to infiltrate the stance of the high profile Air Arabia and Gulf Air to make Dhaka Regency its official crew accommodation hotel. Needless to say that there were many other hotels competing to acquire these airlines since market intelligence picked up their search for a new accommodation provider. But Dhaka Regency bested them all and is very proud of it.

Dhaka Regency Hosts Malaysian Food Festival

In the month of October, Dhaka Regency hosted the “Dhaka Regency Malaysian Food & Cultural Festival” on its popular rooftop garden restaurant, GRILL ON THE SKYLINE. For 7 days starting from October 13 to 19, 2011 every evening between 7:30 pm – 10:30 pm, the hotel hosted a festival of vibrant colors, lively cultural performances, deep-set elements of Malaysia, and of course, a smorgasbord of scrumptious Malaysian delicacies. This time Dhaka Regency provided that extra something that really titillated the palates of one and all. The hotel also brought on board, with the collaboration of its “Event Partners” the High Commission of Malaysia and Tourism Malaysia, popular dance troupe Anggun Entertainment of Kuala Lumpur, as well as the services of guest chefs from its “Culinary Partners” Putrajaya Marriott Hotel & Spa all the way from the land of Truly Asian beauty. Boishakhi TV, Kaler Kantha, The Daily Star and Radio Foorti were its “Media Partners”.

The opening night of the festival was an exclusive event unto itself. With distinguished guests from all walks of life, embassies, ministries, major corporate houses and celebrities, the night was a success from the get go. The soothing crooning of sufi singer Rafat and celebirty singer Elita Karim enchanted the audience with beautiful acoustic renditions of their popular album songs. And last but not least Artists in their own elements and rights, Anggun enthralled the audiences with one traditional dance after another, beginning with the welcome dance of presenting “sirih leaves” to symbolize a request for a blessing to begin an activity and continuing with the fan dance of “joget kipas”, the Arabic “hati kama”, and even Bharat Natyam and Chinese dramatic flourishes.

Another highlight of the evening was the Malaysian Ambassador to Dhaka, His Excellency Mr. Jamaluddin Sabeh, presiding over the opening ceremony as Chief Guest. The hotel’s Executive Director Mr. Shahid Hamid FIH initiated the festival by presenting His Excellency with a tribute of Bunga Emas, a representation of a golden tree that was traditionally presented to the sultans of and foreign diplomats visiting Malaysia. Following this elegant opening, the hotel’s Executive Director proceeded to honoring its various festival partners. Meanwhile with delicious items such as Kerabu Jatung Pisang (fragrant mixed salad in banana flower), Seruding Ayam (chicken floss), Daging Gulai Lemak (beef stew in coconut cream), the famous Nasi Goreng Kampong (a type of fried rice derived straight from rural Malaysia), Ikan Bakar (grilled fish parcel in banana leaf), Jemput-Jemput Pisang (banana dumplings), the buffet table gave the cultural aspect of the festival a run for their money to enjoy what Dhaka Regency’s expert culinary team had to offer.

Dhaka Regency Attends BITF

After a gap of nearly two years, Dhaka Regency participated in a local tourism fair, the Bangladesh International Tourism Fair, in October. Organized by the Bangladesh Federation of Tourism Development, the BITF is the largest travel and hospitality fair to be held each year in Bangladesh. This year, it was presided over by the Civil & Tourism Minister Mr. GM Quader as the chief guest. 22 foreign countries had joined the fair. As the hospitality partner, Dhaka Regency enjoyed the opportunity to display its product on one of the two pavilions on offer and selected this occasion to exhibit its basic club floor guest room amenitites at the three day fair.

Dhaka Regency Participates in PATA and WTM 2011

World Travel Market and PATA Travel Mart are the two leading global event for the travel industry to bring together travel agents and tour operators to meet with suppliers from around the world, who organized the fair every year, and this year, Dhaka Regency attended both. With a determination to make its presence felt in the international market, the hotel fist attended the PATA Mart in New Delhi between September 6-9, 2011 and then the WTM in UK between November 7-11, 2011. The exhibitions brought together over thousands of travel and tourism products by travel agents, tour operators, and professionals from all segments of the industry from various countries and hospitality leisure and tourism industries around the world. Also it was truly an honor for Dhaka Regency when this year, Bangladesh Tourism Board selected the hotel to be one of its participants and only hotel hospitality representative at its grand platform there to highlight all that is beautiful about Bangladesh in the WTM. An honor and a privilege, the hotel took on the immense responsibility to boldly highlight the nation through distribution of national electronic brochures alongside its own brand materials. Representative from Dhaka Regency were its Executive Director Mr. Shahid Hamid FIH and Head of Sales & Marketing Mr. Anwar Hossain MIH.

Christmas at Dhaka Regency

It has become more of a custom for Dhaka Regency the hotel contributes a lion share of its effort towards sharing the spirit of Christmas and holding a birthday celebration for the special children of Shishu Palli Plus (SPP), an orphanage in Sreepur and a long established charitable prospect for the hotel. Bright and early on 2011 Christmas morning, a delegate of the hotel management set out for Sreepur with a 25 kg birthday cake and chefs and ingredients for a kachchi party and a whole day of fun.

There were offers aplenty on Christmas Eve, when Grandiose Restaurant (level 6) featured an extended buffet dinner and also both Grandiose Restaurant and the beautiful Grill On The Skyline (rooftop) offered a sumptuous and extravagant four course dinner of poached prawn salad, roast turkey with bread dumpling and apple cranberry sauce, stuffed grill chicken with spinach and mushroom, plum pudding, log cake and the works. This offer was also available on Christmas Night. Where on Christmas Day there was also a special Christmas Buffet Brunch in Grandiose Restaurant.

But the real excitements began in the hotel itself when, from 11:00 am to 2:30 pm, the magical “Regency Christmas Wonderland” commenced. A carnival of veritable entertainment, the children’s party had pop corn and cotton candy stations and lots of other premium edibles loved by kids everywhere, puppet and magic shows, fortunetelling by one talented parrot, a bouncing house of fun, a portrait sketch artist, and lots of presents to be handed out by Disney Mascots and Santa Claus himself. Needless to say, it was a remarkable day for those kids who love to lose their selves in a wonderland.

Cocktail Party for the Media

For any organization, public relations, or rather relationships with the general public, is essential to be harbored and nourished. Therefore, the press, radio, and television “folks”, more appropriately called “the media” is key to create positive awareness towards your brand. Indeed, Dhaka Regency has raised the bar on building a most advantageous relationship with the media to keep itself in the spotlight. Throughout the year, our hotel has received significant mileage for all its product promotions or festival offers thanks to our media industry friends and associates.

On December 21, 2011, Dhaka Regency invited all of its collaborates in the media world for a cocktail twist. After month long planning, the invitations were sent out and the guests were to arrive late that evening for a night of relaxation and mingling with old friends and new. And all because we wanted to thank our well wishers in the Bangladesh media industry who often (or at some point) helped us get the buzz out to the public.

The evening started with a welcome speech from honorable Executive Director of Dhaka Regency Mr. Shahid Hamid FIH ended with a raffle draw. There was also a scrumptious banquet accompanied by cocktail drinks and a long exciting performance by well known artist Parvez Sazzad. It was a very warm reception to add more value to the hotel’s well-wishing media friends.

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