Exclusive interview with Jai Sharma, Founder, Envelop Designs Arabia 

Envelop has worked with major hospitality names including Taj Hotels, Rambagh Palace, Fairmont Udaipur, Ananta Hotels & Resorts and Emaar. What does a hotel or hospitality brand typically come to you wanting, and how does that differ from what a private client wants?

The starting point is actually the same, we begin with the story. Before we think about the space or the visual language, we want to understand who we’re designing for, their personalities, their values, what makes them different from everyone else in the room.

With a private client, that story is personal, a couple’s journey, their relationship, their families. With a hospitality brand, the story belongs to the property itself, its history, its guests, what it wants to be remembered for. The questions we ask change, but the process doesn’t. We’re still uncovering the emotional core before a single design decision gets made.

Hospitality brands are increasingly investing in “experience” as a differentiator rather than just service or amenities. From where you sit, is that a genuine shift in the industry or more of a marketing trend?

I’d call it a genuine shift, and it mirrors what we’ve seen happen with weddings over the last decade. The biggest change has been from display to meaning. Earlier, everything was about grandeur, now it’s increasingly about intention. Guests want experiences that reflect a place’s personality and values, not just its amenities.

The common thread across hospitality, weddings and brand experiences is emotional storytelling. People remember how something made them feel far longer than they remember what it looked like. We call it the memory economy, and hotels are starting to design for it the same way we’ve always designed celebrations, around recall, not just service.

You’ve now partnered with Rayqube to launch Envelop Designs Arabia in the UAE. What made Rayqube the right partner, and what does the division of expertise look like between design and technology in that partnership?

Rayqube brings nearly a decade of expertise in events, exhibition build-outs and technology-driven experiences, and that’s exactly the layer we needed to build properly in this market. Our strength has always been narrative, understanding a story and translating it into a spatial and experiential journey. Rayqube’s strength is production and technology, the infrastructure that makes ambitious ideas actually executable at scale.

Bringing that philosophy into the UAE through Envelop Designs Arabia let us build for a market that’s hungry for experiences with real cultural depth, and Rayqube is the right partner to help us do that. Design and technology under one roof means we’re not compromising on either side.

Hospitality operators think in terms of repeat guests and brand loyalty, not just single events. How do you design an experience that serves that longer-term relationship rather than just the moment itself?

A single celebration has one goal, to be remembered by the people in the room that night. A hospitality brand needs something that keeps working long after the guests have left, that makes them want to come back, or tell someone else about it.

What we’ve found is that the two aren’t actually in conflict. If an experience is built around genuine narrative rather than spectacle, it tends to create exactly the kind of memory that brings people back. We’re not designing for one night when we work with a hotel group, we’re designing for how that property wants to be felt every time someone walks through it.

The UAE hospitality and events market is famously competitive at the luxury end. What gap did you see here that made you confident there was still room for a studio built around narrative rather than décor?

We didn’t come to the UAE because it was the obvious next step. We came because I believe this region understands what it means to design a moment rather than just produce an event. There’s a real appetite here for depth, for culture, for experiences that are felt rather than simply seen.

Much of the region’s industry has been built around production and décor, and it’s genuinely excellent at that. What we saw was a different question waiting to be asked, not what a space should look like, but how it should make guests feel, treating every project as a complete sensory experience and reading psychology, pacing and emotion as real materials of design, alongside light, sound and space.

You’ve said Envelop deliberately limits itself to seven or eight social projects a year. Does that same discipline apply to hospitality partnerships, or does a longer-term brand relationship with a hotel group work differently from a single wedding or celebration?

The discipline is the same, even if the shape of the relationship is different. A hospitality partnership isn’t one project, it’s an ongoing one, so the depth we’d normally put into a single celebration gets spread across a longer relationship instead. That actually suits us. We’re not interested in taking on every hotel group that approaches us, we’re interested in the ones where there’s real alignment on what an experience should be.

The seven or eight number applies specifically to social projects, but the underlying principle, depth over volume, is what governs every relationship we take on, hospitality included.

With Envelop Designs Arabia, you’ve mentioned engaging in early conversations around Dubai’s real estate sector alongside hospitality and brand work. How closely connected are real estate and hospitality experience design from where you sit, and do they draw on the same process?

They’re closer than people assume. A real estate launch and a hospitality brand are both, in a sense, asking people to imagine a feeling before they’ve fully experienced the place, whether that’s living somewhere or staying somewhere. Both are memory economy exercises.

We’re already engaged in conversations for potential pitches with the city’s rapidly evolving real estate sector, and the process we’d bring to that is identical to what we bring to hospitality, understand the story, understand what feeling needs to be associated with the brand, then build the experience backward from there.

Technology is becoming a bigger part of how hospitality brands design guest experiences, from immersive installations to digital touchpoints. How do you decide when technology adds to a narrative versus when it distracts from it?

Technology can accelerate research, visualisation and execution, and we use it for exactly that. But it can not sit with a guest and understand what a particular moment means to them. That part of the work, empathy, intuition, storytelling, will always be human.

The test for us is simple, does the technology serve the story, or is it there because it looks impressive. If it’s the latter, we leave it out, no matter how capable it is. Technology should disappear into the experience, not announce itself.

Looking at Envelop’s growth trajectory, from Jaipur to Abu Dhabi to a full-time UAE presence, what does success in this market look like for you three to five years from now, beyond revenue targets?

The numbers matter, and we’ve set clear targets as part of that growth. But if I look at it purely through revenue, I’d be missing the point of why we came here in the first place.

Success for me looks like the UAE becoming a place where we get to attempt ideas we simply couldn’t have executed before, projects that need this scale, this appetite for depth, this cultural richness. If in three to five years people in this market associate Envelop with experiences that are felt rather than seen, that’s the real marker, the revenue will follow that, not the other way around.

With the summer holidays drawing to a close and the return to school just around the corner, Yas Acres Golf & Country Club is giving families one last chance to make the most of the summer with a full day of poolside fun. Taking place on Saturday, 29 August, the Back-to-School Pool Party brings together entertainment, activities and full pool access for a final summer celebration before the school routine begins.

Running from 10am to 7pm, the day will keep the little ones entertained with a packed line-up of family-friendly activities, including a bubble show, a magic show, a craft station, face painting, balloon twisting, a photo booth and arcade games. A live DJ and BBQ station will add to the poolside atmosphere, giving families plenty of reason to make a day of it.

FACT BOX:

• What: Back to School Pool Party
• Offer: Adults: AED 179 (AED 100 redeemable); Children from 6 to 12 years: AED 89 (AED 50 redeemable). | When: Saturday, 29 August 2026, 10AM to 7PM. | Where: Pool area, Yas Acres Golf & Country Club | For more info, call +971 (0)50 757 4808 or email dining.yagcc@viyagolf.com | Visit: https://viyagolf.com/yasacres/promotions/back-to-school-pool-party/

By Srijith K.N

As I stepped into Radisson Blu Hotel, Dubai Waterfront in Business Bay this August, the weather outside was anything but pleasant. We checked in at around 1:30pm, and my parents and I were warmly greeted by Tejal at reception. She had a great smile, which may sound like a small detail, but it is something hospitality simply cannot do without. It immediately made me feel that we were in for a pleasant stay.

We headed straight to our room, relaxed for a while, and since Mom and Dad weren’t exactly looking to rush outside in the August heat, we soon made our way down to The Larder for lunch. It turned out to be an easy introduction to the hotel’s dining experience.

At the restaurant, we were greeted by Caroline, who took particularly good care of my parents, talking them through what they wanted and making sure they were comfortable. The space itself felt bright and relaxed, with plenty of natural light, warm wooden interiors and enough distance between tables to make a leisurely family lunch comfortable.

Lunch was simple but satisfying. We had fresh salads, crisp accompaniments and comforting mains, followed by a strawberry-topped dessert that provided a light finish to the meal.

Back in the room, there was a large bed and a separate seating area by the window, but the balcony was where the room really came into its own. From there, we could take in the Business Bay skyline and Dubai Water Canal. I have driven through Business Bay countless times, but seeing it from this perspective was different. The only problem, of course, was August — the view made you want to stay outside considerably longer than the weather would allow.

By early evening, the temperature had become a little kinder, so I took my parents for a walk along the Dubai Water Canal, just a short distance from the hotel. They particularly enjoyed watching the boats pass by. That’s perhaps one of the advantages of this particular location in Business Bay: you’re surrounded by high-rises and close to the heart of the city, yet the immediate surroundings don’t feel overwhelmingly busy.

Dinner at FireLake

Dinner brought us to FireLake Grill House & Cocktail Bar, where Christian looked after our table. He deserves a mention because he did considerably more than simply take our order. He gave us a sense of what FireLake was about, patiently walked us through the menu and explained the dishes rather than simply naming them.

I particularly liked the wood-fired bread, and we kicked things off with the charred zucchini. The zucchini carried that smoky edge from the grill without losing its freshness. We also tried the white sausage ragu, which was richer and comforting, while the lamb chops were beautifully grilled — my dad practically claimed the whole plate for himself.

And then there were the drinks. I had Dad try the Espresso Martini, which quickly became part of the evening’s entertainment.

What made dinner work, though, was the combination of food and service. Christian kept checking on us without ever making it feel intrusive. He was also the one who told me about the following day’s Deep South Social Brunch, something I hadn’t really planned for before arriving.

The brunch has several beverage package options alongside its special Deep South menu, and after Christian’s explanation, changing our plans for the following afternoon wasn’t a particularly difficult decision.

The Deep South Social Brunch

After a good night’s sleep, we skipped breakfast the next morning and went directly to FireLake for brunch. The restaurant felt completely different in daylight. The music brought more energy into the space, the atmosphere was livelier, and the menu was built around sharing and trying different things rather than simply ordering one individual dish.

This time, Asim looked after our table. He struck me as someone probably still early in his hospitality career, but he brought plenty of enthusiasm to the table. I also had the opportunity to meet Chef Ronak and speak to him about some of the dishes.

The brunch menu is extensive. Small plates range from summer mezze and steak tartare to charred zucchini and smoked lamb ribs, alongside seafood, pizzas, pasta and dishes from the wood oven and grill.

Chef Ronak was particularly keen for us to try the lamb. What arrived looked deceptively simple, but he explained the lengthy preparation behind it and how the process extends beyond 24 hours to achieve the final flavour and texture. Hearing what actually went into getting that plate onto our table made me appreciate it considerably more.

Before bringing lunch to a close, I tried the FireLake Signature Piña Colada, made with white rum, Malibu, coconut cream, pineapple, lemon juice, simple syrup and bitters. Creamy, tropical and refreshing, it was pretty much made for an afternoon like this.

And then, unfortunately, it was time to leave.

There had probably been too much food over those two days, but very few reasons to actually want to leave. The office was calling the following morning, so our little Business Bay escape had to end.

What stayed with me, however, wasn’t simply the room, the canal view or even the lamb. It was the people.

Christian, Caroline, Pratheesh, Chef Ronak, Jeffrey, Khin, Aliza and Tejal all contributed in different ways, whether through a conversation, a recommendation, helping my parents or simply greeting us with a smile.

A hotel review isn’t complete without acknowledging the people who stood out. Hotels can invest in rooms, restaurants, views and facilities, but hospitality ultimately becomes personal when somebody makes the people you care about feel comfortable.

For me, travelling with my parents, that warmth mattered.

And that is probably the strongest compliment I can give Radisson Blu: we checked in for a hotel stay, but what I remember most is how well the people with me were looked after.