A Radio Interview

This morning on the way to the office I was listening to one of Dubai radio stations – a business-oriented station. Two broadcasters were interviewing a lady who happened to be, if I’m not mistaken, the Director of Human Resources for a new water park that is to be open next week in Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) – one of the emirates in the UAE, which is situated about 45 to 60-minute drive from Dubai.

After a few minutes of conversation which sounded to me more like a sales pitch, I sensed that the two broadcasters started to feel frustrated, simply because they hardly received direct answers from the lady. Nonetheless, they kept on going with more questions. This time some questions around marketing strategy. Very spot-on rational, I think, considering that the new park would definitely have strong contenders from the like in Dubai, namely the Wild Wadi and the Atlantis’ Aquaventure, which have already been in the market for quite some time, easily accessible and hence, are arguably more popular amongst the UAE residents and visitors.

Here is an excerpt from the interview as far as I can recall.

Q: Apart from ticket revenues, from where else do you expect your revenue stream will be coming from?
A: By paying 250 Dirhams for an adult ticket and 175 for a child ticket, they can enjoy our facilities.
(Me : *tapping my forehead once* Douuhh!!)

Q: I mean, do you tie in with some commercial contracts to tap in more revenue? I saw on your website that you are inviting commercial or franchising opportunities within your water park….
A: Oh yes, people will spend at least 2 hours in our park. They will eat and drink there. There is a huge commercial opportunity for everyone.
(Me: *sigh* finally, at least a little bit of common sense here)

Q: How many visitors are you expecting in a year?
A: Between 300,000 and 1 million.
(Me: Wow! What an estimate! With 700,000 gap between the lowest and the highest estimation… hhmmm… what drug was she on?)

Q: How did you go about your market research? From where do you expect the visitors to come?
A: Everybody likes to go to water park. We expect people coming from the UAE, Middle East and international.
(Me: Everybody? Really? Do people from outside the UAE know where RAK is?)

Q: But how would you expect visitors who fly to Abu Dhabi and Dubai to travel by taxi or bus for an hour or so to reach your water park, while they can do the same in Dubai in a matter of a few kilometers? And how would expect those people to come to your park, when there is still no international flight coming to RAK?
A: Ras Al Khaimah is growing. People would love to come to our park.
(Me: *tapping my forehead for the second time* Douuhh!!)

If you think I was wasting my time by listening to that type of conversation, it’s not entirely true. In fact, I kinda enjoyed it a little, contemplating what the two broadcasters could possibly say to each other off air.

After all, that fiasco was not entirely the lady’s fault. Someone had not done their homework prior to the interview. Firstly, if the interview was about promoting a new water park, why the heck did the company permit the HR director to do the interview, instead of their Marketing Director or PR staff? Secondly, the broadcasters must have previously been informed of her title, why would then they keep on asking about marketing stuffs, which were literally not her territory. Thirdly, if she had replied with “I don’t know the answer” to a few of those questions, it would have sounded better than uttering meaningless words that could only embarrass herself.

(Me : *tapping my forehead for the third time*).