INTERVIEW: AHIC winner Nasser Al Nowais

The winner of the Arabian Hotel Investment Conference’s Lifetime Achievement Award, Nasser Al Nowais, attributes Rotana’s success to date to the calibre of its team — but says there is still a lot he wants to achieve in his role as the group’s chairman.

The Arabian Hotel Investment Conference (AHIC) has awarded Rotana chairman Nasser Al Nowais with its Lifetime Achievement Award  — an accolade that gets Hotelier Middle East’s seal of approval.

Al Nowais is known throughout the industry for co-founding Rotana in 1993 with his friend and business partner Selim El Zyr, the group’s president and CEO. He is one of the sector’s strongest advocates of the potential of Arab nationals and Arab companies to succeed at an international level in the hotel business.

Prior to forming Rotana, Al Nowais spent 14 years as the chairman of Abu Dhabi National Hotels (ADNH), during which time he began his mission to build a calibre of Arabic-speaking professional hoteliers working in the properties that would be better prepared to deliver Abu Dhabi’s hospitality as a leading business centre and tourist destination in the Arab world.

“I noticed immediately that the operating companies had many foreigners who did not speak Arabic and so I pushed them to recruit Arabic speakers and to invest in training and experience for their Arab staff.

I am proud to say that many of our first Arab employees are now managers and general managers of significant hotels around the region and the world,” he says.

It was this achievement that helped guide Al Nowais in the establishment of Rotana Hotel Management Corporation, which makes no secret of the fact that its people are the “key asset”.

“I had spent so much time with the people I had dealt with in the hotels company, training them, looking after them, and recognising their achievements,” says Al Nowais.

“I knew that they were capable of running the whole show and at that time there was no Arab company that was set up to manage and operate hotels — and so we set up Rotana.”

Since then, Rotana has grown from two employees to 10,000 — with projections of reaching 17,000 in the next few years as the hotel portfolio grows to 70 properties.

In his role as chairman and in his many lasting relationships with owners, Al Nowais has clearly been instrumental in the rapid growth.

With El Zyr as the public face of the group when it comes to announcements and industry events, however, Al Nowais has a tendency to slip into the background.

So Hotelier jumped at the chance of an interview ahead of AHIC to understand the motivating factors behind his achievements and find out why Al Nowais is still on the path to reach his ultimate goal — which is for Rotana to be “the leading and most dynamic hospitality management company in the Middle East and Africa”.

Firstly, congratulations! How do you feel winning the AHIC lifetime achievement award?
I certainly feel proud and privileged to be recognised by AHIC and to receive the lifetime achievement award, which is an honour to me and to all my colleagues at Rotana. This is a testimony to the hard work and effort expended towards nurturing Rotana into an international success.

Does it make you want to put your feet up or are there other things you would like to achieve with Rotana?
Not yet and we still have a lot to do. Our vision is to be the leading and most dynamic hospitality management company in the Middle East and Africa, operating a comprehensive range of products and brands that aim to meet all the requirements of our guests.

As a company, we will still pursue new openings and opportunities, fresh challenges, and partners who seek the same goals and share the same aspirations.

For the next four years, Rotana will open 10 hotels per year. This year will witness the incorporation of seven new properties into the Rotana fold, out of which six are in the UAE and one is in Doha.

Last and most importantly, we will be entering new markets which we will be announcing in due course.

What do you think has fuelled Rotana’s success to date?
When we started off there were two of us and then four — mainly professionals in operations — and we thought that in 10 years’ time we might have 25 hotels but with thanks to God, since 1993 — when we opened our first hotel, the Beach Rotana — we have become very successful and the people we have employed have done a very good job.

Recognition of the team came early when Beach Rotana won the Sheikh Khalifa Award for Quality. I was very, very pleased for my people that we should win such a historic award when none of the other hotel companies that had been here for so long had won one.

Gradually we have established a well organised operating company but it is all about the devotion of our employees, their efforts and their achievements that has made us successful.

We are not an investment company, we are an operating company and so all our capital and core resources are in our people who have done such a good job.

The Rotana brand is driven by passion, personal warmth, and the delivery of consistent quality standards, combined with a keen understanding of regional markets.

Our product offering is exceptionally strong. Our properties are in the right locations and our level of service, much sought after. Don’t forget we are focused solely on the Middle East and Africa; we know the region better than anyone.

We have gradually reached the hearts of our customers and the desired market recognition, and our repeat guests are a major proof of that.

Guests know what to expect when they are staying at any of our properties and this is very important for us to maintain; international quality standards complemented with traditional Arabic hospitality.

We worked hard to gain the trust of our customers in a competitive region where most international chains were here decades before we came in.

What is your relationship with Selim El Zyr like?
Selim is my friend, colleague and partner. My relationship with Selim is based on trust. We happen to share the same values: a respect for people and a passion to serve.

Are you concerned that the recent unrest in the region will put off traditional markets — who only view the region as a single entity ‘The Middle East’ rather than individual and unique destinations — from visiting the region?

I believe the converse to be true, in that the exposure in the world press has created a far greater awareness of the region and the many countries that it comprises.

People from the west have seen, many of them for the first time, that the region is not the typecast home of terrorism but a melting pot of millions of people with the same hopes and desires, the same hardships and aspirations, as their western counterparts.

And for some, that will result in their wanting to visit the region and to learn more.

What is your advice to budding hoteliers looking to follow in the footsteps of leaders like yourself?
Promise only what you can deliver

What has made your success possible so far, and what is next in the career of Nasser Al Nowais?
The true measure of success lies not in the fact that we are the most dynamic hospitality brand in the Middle East and Africa, but that our growth has been achieved by a focused and highly motivated team of professionals, who combine extraordinary ability with unwavering commitment. As for what’s next for me, if I told you, it would spoil the surprise!

Did you know?
Alongside his obvious success as an entrepreneur, Nasser Al Nowais is also a noted public servant, philanthropist and visionary, who has built and managed world-ranking institutions and companies on behalf of the UAE government.

After graduating with a degree in economics from New York University, Al Nowais returned to Abu Dhabi to begin his work for the UAE.

One of his first tasks was to set up and manage the Abu Dhabi Fund and during his time as managing director of the fund he invested more than AED 2 billion ($544 million) in development projects in more than 40 countries throughout the Arab world, Africa and Asia, launching infrastructural projects ranging from dams, bridges and roads to hospitals and schools.

Meanwhile, he was appointed undersecretary at the UAE Ministry of Finance and Industry, where he founded Abu Dhabi’s Central Bank. At the same time he embraced a number of board positions in the tourism industry with companies such as Gulf Air.

In 1978 Al Nowais was appointed chairman of Abu Dhabi National Hotels to create the company that owns many of the hotel properties managed by the international hotel brands in Abu Dhabi, and is also a significant hotel management company and catering business in its own right.

In 1992 Al Nowais left Abu Dhabi National Hotels in order to form Rotana, which opened Beach Rotana in 1993 in Abu Dhabi.