Our restaurant consultants are always on the lookout for new business opportunities to broaden our scope.
With our home base in Washington, D.C. we are in the unique position of being steeped in such a culturally diverse city, allowing us to gain the experience needed to develop our global network and work with clients in such international markets as Korea, China, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Canada, and Panama.
That experience, and continual objective to broaden our scope, has led us to the recent opening of an office in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Located within the remarkably innovative Dubai Media City, a dynamic community encompassing thousands of regional and international media companies aimed at making Dubai a sought-after leader in global media, our VSAG team is already hard at work in this burgeoning international hospitality market.
Our Dubai office has the breadth of expertise our clients are accustomed to. From restaurant operations and branding strategies to full-service training and recruiting to menu and design development, our VSAG Dubai team is set to successfully fulfill all our client, and prospective client, needs. In addition, we have partnered with Dubai’s renowned ATOM Advertising Agency to execute our digital marketing, PR, and media plans on a client-to-client.
As we watch the Middle East restaurant and hospitality market grow, our team is primed for success. With training taking top priority in this region, as staff instruction and guidance is more important than ever before in the Middle East. “Here in the Gulf region, the average independent restaurant has at least three nationalities working for them and can have upwards of 90, depending on the number of staff. Over 85% of the population and over 90% of the workforce being expatriates, the trainings in this region require people to cross not only language barriers but cultural barriers as well,” says Jake Young, who oversees our UAE team.
Our experience tells us that nothing replaces side by side training with a skilled trainer and practices in place, but we’re finding they can be enhanced through language training, innovative video trainings in lieu of printed materials, and cultural training geared towards helping staff understand their colleagues and customers better.
*photo: Adobe Stock image