In our final movie filmed for the AHEAD MEA awards, Anne-Cecile de Chaumont of Rove Hotels explains how the mid-market Rove Downtown hotel in Dubai succeeded in a city dominated by luxury properties.

Rove Downtown, a three-star hotel in downtown Dubai, is the flagship property in a new chain of mid-market hotels that have sprung up across the city in the last two years.

The Rove Hotel chain was named new concept of the year at the recent AHEAD MEA awards, while Rove Downtown won the event space category.

"For years, Dubai has been known for being a very luxury-oriented destination," Rove Hotels director of design De Chaumont says in the movie, which Dezeen filmed at the Rove Trade Centre hotel in Dubai.

"But you can really feel that there is a strong intent [across the city] to appeal to a wider audience."

According to De Chaumont, the success of the Rove brand lies in the design of the interior spaces, designed by Stride Treglown. She says they create an "unexpectedly high-end experience" for guests.

"It is a new concept for Dubai, as we are a mid-market hotel, but we are a very design-driven and design-influenced hotel," she says.

"Most of the hotels in Dubai are on the high-end scale, so it's important to come with an offer for those guests who will not necessarily go to a high-end hotel, but will be really happy to have an unexpectedly high-end experience in a mid-market hotel."

The interior design of the Rove Downtown is simple but playful, with a host of art installations in the public areas that reference the local area.

"We built this hotel on the idea of being unique and reflecting the sense of place," De Chaumont says. "The hotel almost acts as an art tour guide, and your journey starts when you enter into the hotel and not when you exit the hotel."

She continues: "We have a mix of artworks and artefacts. You have a bicycle installed on the hotel wall and guests will wonder why it is there. When they go to explore Dubai, they will see it is one of the most common bicycles for the delivery boys in Dubai.

The hotel features a generous public lobby and lounge, as well as an outdoor swimming pool on the mezzanine level and meeting spaces featuring large, red sliding doors.

"The meeting and event spaces are very casual," De Chaumont says. "We have these massive garage doors, which are our signature doors, that allow the space to be opened up or connected."

According to De Chaumont, the hotel has been extremely popular with guests since it opened last year.

"The response from the guests is that they really understood that we wanted to come with a different offer," she says. "I think that when you are authentic and you believe in what you do, it works and it works really nicely."

This movie was filmed at the Rove Trade Centre hotel in Dubai for for hospitality awards programme AHEAD. All images are courtesy of Rove Hotels.