Top-scoring F&B manager Shamas gets Hotelier Award

Doha Marriott Hotels' Kazem Shamas secured the highly-coveted award for Food and Beverage Manager of the Year, sponsored by San Pellegrino and Acqua Panna, at the Hotelier Middle East Awards 2011.

F&B is the one of the most important areas of the hotel quasi-economy, accounting for as much as 50% of total revenue. The judges were absolutely inundated with entries for this award, but in the end, there could only be one victor. That man was Kazem Shamas, who recorded a perfect score of 100% satisfaction on both brand standard and associate satisfaction audits, as well as managing to deliver a 40% increase in F&B revenue.

Shamas Sasidharan Gopalan, Doha Marriott's director of engineering accepted the award on behalf of the absent Shamas and praised his efforts.

"He’s a brilliant leader, very pleasant, hard working and very committed," he said. "As an engineer, I work with him a lot and I find him to lead by example. Our F&B business greatly improved since he joined us. In Doha, it’s all about relations. He’s very new to the market but in a couple of weeks, he’s already built strong relations with the government, making us one of their favourite hotels."

The highly-commended nod for this award went to Eman Abela, from the Wyndham Grand Regency Doha.