Top 12 hoteliers to watch in 2012
Hotelier Middle East presents the top 12 general managers and VPs we expect to be shaking up the region's hospitality landscape in 2012.
12 Daniele Vastolo
group director of operations,
Nikki Beach EAME Hotels and Resorts Ltd
Seasoned hotelier Daniele Vastolo made a bold move when he left the familiarity of Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts to join the Nikki Beach brand and deliver the group’s first ever hotel — planned for Qatar in the Middle East.
The $45 million property is located on The Pearl in Doha, perhaps an unlikely choice for the brand behind the Miami and Marbella beach clubs famed for their ‘white parties’. However, Vastolo is not phased, instead emphasising that he is developing a distinct concept for the hotels — which will provide a boutique mix of luxury and entertainment not experienced before in the region.
“Wherever we will operate we will adapt locally, wherever law allows us to be white, we will be white, but yet we will maintain a certain style and elegance - it’s very important,” Vastolo told Hotelier.
“We don’t only want to be perceived only as a beach club, we are changing, there is imitation in the brand, so we will maintain the link with the beach clubs but definitely the hotel will have its own identity.”
This will start with the design — created by Singapore-based ECO ID Architects with interior design by Gatserelia Design — the staff, recruited through a unique series of live talent spotting events to help Vastolo ensure their personalities would match the concept, and the service, which he is striving to make different from that typical of luxury hotels.
“If you ask our staff what music is playing now, they will know,” he says.
“Recruiting talented staff is of paramount importance for the Nikki Beach team and this novel new approach of ‘talent casting’ really worked. We learned about their personality as well as their skills,” recalls Vastolo of an event held in Dubai. “I come from Shangri-La and I have never done recruitment in this way, it’s a learning curve for us as well, we are very excited.
“I like to stress to them that we hire for attitude and we train for skills. Everyone has a dream in life to be somebody and with the right attitude you can achieve it. With proper training and guidance, we can help them reach their dream of becoming restaurant managers, housekeeping managers and more.”
Recruitment is well underway ahead of the opening of phase one of the project in summer, which will involve the launch of 24 Nikki Suites and most of the F&B. In total, there will be 47-luxury villas and spa suites include Satine, a pan Asian speciality restaurant, NikkiSpa by Espa, Envy, the Ultra VIP lounge, a signature Nikki Beach Club with private plunge pools and a Tone Fitness Centre.
However, the Pearl project isn’t the only property Vastolo is working on, as he reveals eight more projects are slated to open within the next three to four years, in places such as Croatia, Greece, Beirut — where he and the corporate team is based — and Abu Dhabi, although he says this one isn’t finalised.
According to a statement from the company, 10 new projects totalling $400 million are now in the planning stages in Europe, Africa and the Middle East — so we could be seeing a lot more of Vastolo in 2012 and beyond. This month, Vastolo will be one of the speakers at the Hotelier Middle East Qatar GM Debate.
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11 Shuja Zaidi
general manager, makkah hilton and towers, and vice president projects, hilton worldwide, KSA
Shuja Zaidi stumbled into the hospitality industry by “complete accident”, he says. He trained initially as a commercial airline pilot in the US, but when he finished his course, the industry was “going through hell”.
He decided to take up a marketing degree and work in a small hotel while he studied. “Before I even graduated I got into management roles and I just continued on,” he explains.
He joined Hilton almost 20 years ago and has worked in places from Houston and Guam in the US, to Northern China, where “the temperature used to shoot from minus 40 to positive 50”.
It is no wonder he says his greatest achievement was when Hilton moved him from that position to its hotel in Mecca. At the time, it was integrating an extra 800 rooms to its existing 600. “My job was to turn the property around and get lots of people trained — it’s a huge property, but I was able to successfully do that.”
“When I joined eight years ago it was just coming round to getting a big travel and tourism industry, and then it really started to flourish,” Zaidi explains. The religious tourism market especially rocketed, and being the first branded deluxe hotel in Mecca was the key to Hilton’s continuing success there.
Zaidi believes that this will help them with “the biggest project in the world right now in terms of hospitality” — Jabal Omar, in Mecca, where Hilton is to open six of the 26 branded hotels planned for the development.
As well as work going ahead on Jabal Omar, this year will see a property open in Riyadh. Everything is going according to plan, he says, but the main challenge he is going to face is Saudisation. “The government of Saudi Arabia keenly wants the youngsters of their country to get into this industry, as it is such an important one, so that’s where we will see our main challenge.”
However, he says that he has a “million dollar approach”. He is developing and managing existing local staff at the upper-end, and “once the younger Saudis see this, they instantly get the message that this is something they can do and they want to achieve that someday”.
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10 Kevin Wallace
President and CEO, Jebel Ali International Hotels
Having recently relocated from Asia to the Middle East, Kevin Wallace took up the position of president and CEO of Jebel Ali International Hotels (JAIH) on October 1, 2011. He also holds the title of general manager, hospitality investment and development at Dutco Group, JAIH’s parent company.
A 25-year hotel industry veteran, Wallace was previously president of Centara International Management, one of the largest resort management companies in the world, where he orchestrated the growth of the company four fold over a three-year period and from Thailand alone to 10 countries.
Prior to that he was president and CEO of Wyndham Worldwide’s NorthCourse Leisure Real Estate Solutions, president and CEO of Grand Circle Cruise Lines and president and CFO of Mirage Resorts and Hotels.
This experience alone provides some explanation as to why Wallace is one to watch in his new role; JAIH is embarking on an ambitious overseas expansion plan and Wallace is the man credited with a host of new signings — with plenty more expected.
Just as he took Centara beyond Thailand, Wallace is already focused heavily on driving JAIH’s presence outside of the UAE into new markets, specifically in territories he has first-hand experience.
To date, the group has signed multiple third party management contracts for luxury resorts in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Maldives, Seychelles, India and Vietnam.
Just last month, Wallace told Hotelier Middle East: “We’re embarking on major expansion overseas, both by acquisition and by third party management contracts which we’ve never done before, but now we’re in four countries just in the last four months,” said Wallace.
“They are significant moves for us and we’re close to signing another 10 contracts as well,” he revealed.
The first international hotel to open will be in the Seychelles by the end of this year. This will add to JAIH’s portfolio of five owned-and-operated hotels in the UAE, where the company was first established 30 years ago.
The global growth is also expected to be the catalyst for a potential rebrand of JAIH, although Wallace is remaining quiet on the matter for the moment.
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9 Pascal Gauvin
chief operating officer for India, the Middle East and Africa,
Intercontinental Hotels Group
Following the retirement of IHG stalwart John Bamsey, another long-serving member of the family is set to take his place this month. Pascal Gauvin began in hospitality at an early age, attending hotel school in his native France and he began his career with international hotel companies in Paris with Hilton in 1980.
Starting out as a waiter in a coffee shop, Gauvin had a conversation with the HR manager one day. He told Gauvin: “If you do a good job you will go faster than others and if not you will be with everybody else.” “So I took the challenge and I loved it,” he says.
After a stint of seven years with Hilton he moved to Accor, where he went through the ranks quickly and was second to the GM in 1989, staying in Paris.
In 1993 he joined InterContinental, and the following year moved to the Philippines, staying in Asia for a total of five years. He then headed to Africa, managing two hotels and a convention centre. But it wasn’t until 2002 that he got his first real taste of the Middle East, in Lebanon, where he managed the Phoenicia Hotel.
“Lebanese people are so driven and so talented, they make me really love the country,” he says.
However, in 2005, crisis struck, as the country’s ex-president Rafik Hariri was assassinated outside of his property, causing damage to the structure. “I was evacuating the hotel and closing it down and managing the crisis on behalf of our owner and making sure we stayed closed for as few days as possible. As quickly as we could, we needed to take care of people, being direct and telling them what’s happening and what we’re going to do.”
He says that while the Middle East is prone to crisis, “because there is a lot of regional travel, other countries benefit from it. At the end of the day, what you don’t get from one country, you will get from another. If there is a downturn somewhere, there will be an upturn somewhere else.
“It’s about being prepared, being proactive and training your people to deal with it properly and giving the right support — before, during and after the crisis,” he explains.
It was in the same year that he moved to Dubai as director of operations for the UAE and Qatar — a total of around 10 hotels. Now, with the departure of John Bamsey, Gauvin takes over as COO of India, the Middle East and Africa. He promises that it’s going to be an exciting first year under his leadership, with four Crowne Plaza hotels opening in the Middle East alone — in Doha, Jordan, Medina and Riyadh. He says that the InterContinental brand, which just opened a second flag in Doha, will also be expanding in Lebanon in the next year.
However, the plans for the next five years dwarf this. “In the next five years, our target is 96 new hotels,” he reveals. “Today we have 110 hotels, so we will nearly double in the region. It’s really quite a good growth, but we also need to make sure it’s a stable growth.
“I believe that the Middle East is a place which is on the move. We have some great practices here and we can surf on the waves of great business.”
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8 Alex Kyriakidis
president and managing director – Middle East and Africa, Marriott International
Alex Kyriakidis has officially stepped into the big boots of the well-respected Ed Fuller — who retired on March 31 — as president and managing director for Marriott’s Middle East and Africa division.
With 38 hotels in operation, the division is poised for major growth; approximately 40 hotels are in Marriott’s hotel development pipeline in the region and plans include significant developments in sub-Saharan African markets.
It’s the challenge of overseeing Marriott’s ambitious regional expansion plans that drew Kyriakidis to the role. He may not be your average hotel chief, but as former global managing director for Deloitte he led a team of 4500 in a division that generated $700 million of revenues.
His wide-ranging, 38-year career extends to 25 countries and involves broad experience in strategic and financial planning, mergers and acquisitions and asset management.
“I worked with Deloitte for the biggest hotel companies in the world, the biggest leisure companies in the world and for government. I’ve done major strategy work, I’ve been involved with $7 billion of hotel real estate M&A and have worked on international expansion,” he says.
Today, Kyriakidis is overseeing all aspects of the division’s business activities, including operations, sales and marketing, finance and hotel development.
By appointing Kyriakidis — who is based in Dubai and fluent in three languages including Arabic — Marriott has placed importance on the region and he is already taking the bull by the horns.
Discussing his strategy in relation to the region’s varying hotel markets, he says: “We have countries that are booming economically, that the sheer momentum of the investment in the economy is going to give rise to significant demand for hotel rooms.
“We have some countries in North Africa going through some challenges like Egypt and Libya. Let’s not forget how successful Egypt tourism was up until the civil unrest,” he continues.
Kyriakidis confirms that he will be making a big push to help revive Egypt’s fortunes, but the country needs to be seen as safe.
“Arne Sorenson, the chief executive, wants the Middle East to be completely on the same level as the other regions of the world, with its own president, its own team in the region. This is a very powerful statement which underscores the confidence in the region and expectations of growth,” he concludes.
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7 Martin van Kan
general manager, Fairmont Palm Jumeirah
Judging by the track record of the hotels currently operating on Dubai’s Palm Jumeirah, Martin van Kan is arguably leading one of 2012 most exciting openings.
In a nutshell, Fairmont Palm Jumeirah will offer 381 rooms, 2600m² of meeting space, outdoor leisure facilities with a beach restaurant and a private beach club, a pool complex and children’s activity centre, a variety of dining facilities featuring sea, garden or pool views, and a Willow Stream spa.
Van Kan brings to the position a wealth of experience in hotel operations and management, from more than 10 years with InterContinental Hotel Group (IHG) and nine years with Hyatt International.
His previous position as director of operations Oman and general manager of Al Bustan Palace, an InterContinental Hotel — now a Ritz-Carlton hotel — saw several achievements in business performance, environmental and community relations.
Indeed, it is these attributes and Van Kan’s passionate attention to every detail of Fairmont Palm Jumeirah that makes this GM one to watch.
He has earmarked the restaurants and bars under development as being the “bread and butter” of the hotel’s business when it opens in Q3, 2012. According to Van Kan, the hotel will seek to establish itself as a dining destination for local Dubai residents.
“Food and beverage at the Palm is going to be where we hopefully are going to be opening the hotel in great style and for the foreseeable future F&B will be our bread and butter — we will be owning that community as best as we possibly can,” van Kan told Hotelier.
He suggested that the hotel would look to topple Fairmont Dubai’s Spectrum on One restaurant “off its number one brunch spot”.
“Fairmont’s name in the city in very many respects came out of F&B and one of the big things 10 years ago was its position in brunch and that really helped elevate the F&B status here,” said Van Kan.
“There’s no reason why we can’t use that as the platform from which we can all move to greater places.”
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6 Rupprecht Queitsch
General manager, JW Marriott Marquis Dubai
A 40-year-veteran of the hotel industry, German national Rupprecht Queitsch is, in his own words, “a little bit different than your average general manager”. He has held GM roles for the past 23 years, and rather than moving into corporate office as many do, he clearly relishes his hands on role and position within the community in which his hotel operates.
Wherever he is based, Queitsch endeavours to forge strong ties within the local community. He is a past president of the Lions Club in Prague, a member of the Skal Club and the Chaine des Rotisseurs and has been a member of the board of the American Chamber of Commerce in the Czech Republic and France, where he was elected vice president of the Chamber in 2007.
Now based in Dubai for the first time, Queitsch has a fairly formidable challenge on his hands; the opening of the first JW Marriott Marquis branded hotel in the Middle East.
At a height of 355 metres — just 26 metres shorter than the Empire State Building — it will become the tallest dedicated hotel building in the world. In quarter four this year, 804 rooms and the majority of the 12 F&B outlets will open and 1100-1200 staff will join the team in the ramp-up. When an additional 804 rooms open a year later, JW Marriott Marquis Dubai will become the largest hotel in the emirate.
It will also be, according to Queitsch, the first property to bring to Dubai a meetings, convention and events market of a scale never seen in the UAE before. It is this specific goal, coupled with the strength of the Dubai market — last year, the city was one of the top five global RevPar performers worldwide with strong occupancies averaging 75.4% (STR Global) — that gives this GM confidence in having such a significant room inventory.
Considering his position at the helm of such a large investment by owner Emirates Group — which is ploughing AED 2.2 billion ($599 million) into the hotel — and his own ambitious goals, Queitsch is definitely one to watch in 2012.
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5 Doris Greif
General Manager, Jumeirah at Etihad Towers, Abu Dhabi
Responsible for the successful opening of Jumeirah at Etihad Towers, the Dubai-based hospitality group’s first venture in the UAE capital, Doris Greif has continued to enjoy a long-standing reputation in the region.
With several general manger positions to her name, both in the Middle East and Asia, Greif has turned her attention to creating a successful ‘city within a city’ at Etihad Towers in Abu Dhabi, making her one of the top hoteliers to watch throughout 2012.
Greif’s appointment as general manager of Jumeirah at Etihad Towers was announced in March 2010, making her the first female general manager in Abu Dhabi adding to her existing first female general manager in the Middle East status, during her tenure at Jumeirah Beach Club Resort & Spa.
Her hospitality journey has been varied as she gathered experience from around the globe, telling Hotelier Middle East: “I knew during my regional role (front office and revenue development for Hilton), when I travelled a lot and lived out of a suitcase, that I started missing the action of the operational role, being with your team, with your guests, and probably also a bit of stability — being grounded.”
It’s possible Greif’s love of operations comes from originally wanting to be a car mechanic, so it’s perhaps no surprise that her previous positions include general manager of Jumeirah Emirates Towers, Jumeirah HanTang in Shanghai, and chief operating officer — city operations for Dubai International Financial Centre to name a few.
During this period, Greif became known for unique initiatives such as launching the Middle East’s first hotel floor exclusively for women in association with Chopard at Jumeirah Emirates Towers and she is credited with helping position the hotel as the heart of the business district.
“Jumeirah Emirates Towers has unrivalled office spaces and unbelievable views in the heart of what is now Dubai’s business district. DIFC came only after Emirates Towers — so it was JET which made this area the heart of business in Dubai,” commented Greif during the 10-year anniversary of the property.
Currently, she is leading her team of more than 700 colleagues during the opening phase of Jumeirah at Etihad Towers, a project she has headed up over the last two years, working with the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority and other partners to place the capital of the UAE firmly on the tourism map.
Her secret to success is ensuring a strong management team with a mix of skills sets, as Greif comments herself: “In the management team, we had a few direct transfers from different Jumeirah hotels, then we had some ‘returners’.
We also had six or seven colleagues who were brand new to Jumeirah and partly also to the Middle East. It was a very careful mix, because the key was to get the right personalities because the team has to click.
“More than anything, these 15 colleagues who really run the show have to get along. We all have different skills sets, we all have different personalities, but this team makes it or breaks it,” she added.
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4 Tareq Derbas
General manager, St. Regis Doha
General manager Tareq Derbas has been preparing to launch Starwood’s luxury St.Regis brand in Qatar for the past 20 months, leading a robust pre-opening for this 336-room hotel.
Complete with 4000m² of meeting space, a Remede Spa, Olympic swimming pool, beachfront cabanas with private Jacuzzis and the first international outpost of New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Centre, everything about St. Regis Doha promises a high-class luxurious experience — and Derbas has been dedicated to recruiting a top team to deliver this.
Back in January, he recruited more than 200 hospitality professionals in an effort to ensure service will hit the desired standard come opening this month. In total, the team will comprise 700 employees.
“We have brought a significant number of staff to the hotel early, in order to provide a comprehensive training programme before we open our doors to guests” said Derbas.
“Our plan is to make our opening season one of the highlights of the social calendar in Doha, and we are confident that we have assembled the right team to deliver this unique experience for people in Qatar and for luxury enthusiasts from around the world.”
One highlight is expected to be the St. Regis Butler service, available to every guest 24 hours a day. Complimentary services include unpacking and packing; two pressings of garments; and in-room fresh tea or coffee every morning.
On the topic of F&B, Derbas is also striving to ensure the hotel is recognised as a culinary hotspot, with restaurants including international brand Hakkasan, two outlets in partnership with a celebrity chef — the fine dining Gordon Ramsay and the casual alternative, Opal by Gordon Ramsay. Recreating the atmosphere of an English manor house, Gordon Ramsay will be headed by Michelin star chef Gilles Bosquet.
Throughout the pre-opening, Derbas, who previously worked for Burj Al Arab in Dubai, has promised to establish “the hotel as the finest address in Doha”, and this month, all eyes will be on him at Hotelier Middle East’s Qatar General Manager’s Debate, where Derbas is a keynote speaker.
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3 Michel Koopman
Anantara director of operations Middle East and general manager, Eastern Mangroves Hotel & Spa by Anantara
Michel Koopman has the dual responsibility of opening Anantara’s first city hotel in the UAE and ensuring the continued success of the company’s existing resort properties on Sir Bani Yas island and in Liwa.
The brand may be small in the Middle East compared to some, but its accessible, entrepreneurial spirit has won over guests and employees alike, while the partnership with Abu Dhabi’s Tourism Development & Investment Company has ensured a steady roll-out of launches where others have fallen by the wayside.
In Abu Dhabi, Koopman’s goal is clear: to develop Eastern Mangroves as a corporate, government hotel, with everything at the property geared around meeting the needs of these particular guests and the Abu Dhabi locals — for which Anantara aims to be the preferred hotel.
Spread across a 1.6 kilometre site, Eastern Mangroves is certainly a far cry from a typical city hotel; its USPs are its fantastic location, open space, natural light and privacy, while some of the highlights include the Anantara Spa and Royal Mangrove Residence — the largest suite in Abu Dhabi coming in at AED 55,000 (US $14,973) per night. The hotel’s competitor set includes Abu Dhabi’s Shangri-La and Fairmont, plus Emirates Palace for government contracts and Park Rotana for corporate business, and Koopman acknowledges that 2012 will be challenging because of the recent increase in supply in the capital.
“I think in 2012 there will definitely be pressure on the market, but we’re not in the business for one year, we’re in the business for the long term. I’d be more worried if I had to fill a 500-room box hotel or if I have to fill a hotel on Saadiyat Island with no corporate market — they are all built for the future.
We feel very comfortable with where we are and the amount of people who see the product when they travel. It’s a great location.
“We don’t have to fill up a hotel with 500 rooms. We have 222 rooms, we’re not going to run it at 80% in the first year for a few extra dollars. One question you asked is what’s more important rate or occupancy, definitely rate because it’s long term positioning that really makes this hotel successful and our owners have been very specific — we have to maintain our asset.
TDIC has spent a fortune on all our hotels so we are the custodians of the brand and the assets, and that’s what we need to do,” says Koopman.
“I know the market and I’ve been to every hotel, they’re all fantastic hotels, but I think what we try to offer is something that is generous but understated, luxury but not in your face, and its something that is really Abu Dhabi.
“We can compete at the top of the market with this product — we can, we should and we will,” asserts Koopman.
The hotel is scheduled to open as planned at the end of the second quarter this year.
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2 Erol Sezer
General manager, DUBAI PROJECTS, RIXOS
The landscape of luxury hotels in Dubai has seemed crowded in recent years. However, a breath of fresh air has brought new life into the market, with the introduction of Rixos bringing the very best in Turkish hospitality.
In March, Rixos The Palm opened to much fanfare, and later in the year there will be a second property in the emirates, the Rixos Bab Al Bahr in Ras Al Khaimah. In charge of the brand’s Dubai projects is general manager Erol Sezer, himself from Turkey.
Sezer has a long history in hospitality, stemming from his family managing a boutique hotel in Turkey. He began his 24-year journey in the sector with a strong focus on F&B, working for the likes of Dedeman and Steigenberger, eventually working his way up to being research and development manager and an F&B coordinator for Rixos in 2002.
In 2005 Sezer launched his book of Turkish recipes, Feastanbul, and says it is now his pleasure to “provide the unique tastes of Turkey to this new region”. He explains: “Dubai is such a multicultural melting pot and introducing and educating our target market on the difference of Turkish hospitality and the quality of service we provide is a fascinating task”.
While The Palm project was a huge undertaking, following the company’s scuppered first attempt to break into the region — the Zabeel Saray management contract it had won was handed to Jumeirah Group in 2010 — the upcoming RAK property will have almost three times the number of rooms, at 627.
For the moment though, Sezer says that the focus is certainly on Dubai: “As our chairman Fettah Tamince says, Dubai is the Champions League for us and we should be performing at the top of our game. Dubai is one of our key global destinations and our newly launched hotel is a gateway towards many more upcoming openings and projects in the region.”
Sezer thinks that the success of the properties in the Middle East will be their “small but significant touches”, such as the “passion of serving and the pride that each one of our team members gets when they are offering any service to any of our guests”. He adds: “Before a guest tells us, we anticipate his every need and try to act on it”.
Even being such a young company — launched in 2000 by Fettah Tamince in Antalya — Sezer says: “We are confident that our global Rixos clientele will be following us to all the new regions we introduce, wanting to experience what more surprises and innovative services we offer this time.”
“I very much wish for this new presence in the UAE to become one of the new favourite Rixos resort locations, and a true crossroads for local, regional and international travellers.”
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1 Mark WillIS
AREA vice president, Middle East and SUB-SAHARAN Africa, Rezidor
Mark Willis started his career with “humble beginnings” as a steward in a small hotel in the Lake District in the UK. He worked in the kitchens through a number of roles before moving abroad to Germany, the Middle East and then Africa.
In 1998 he moved back to the UK and joined Radisson. “Out of the blue the regional director pulled me to one side and told me I was wasted in the kitchen,” Willis explains.
“Typical of Radisson — promoting from within — he put a proposal on the table and within the first year I was involved in three openings and I was gradually pushed forward in a fantastic fashion.”
Willis has been with the Rezidor group since then, only leaving for a year in order to complete an MBA at Oxford University. He says that in his 14 years with the company, his greatest achievement is simply being part of what they have achieved and what they have grown to become. However, he believes that there is much more to come, especially in the Middle East and Africa.
“It’s a very diverse region and we have a fantastic portfolio here in both areas with many hotels in the pipeline. It’s a huge challenge but a wonderful one, and one I’m happy to be jumping into.” Willis will oversee the launch of five hotels in 2012 — one in the Middle East and four in Africa.
He is especially looking forward to the Middle East project — the group’s first in Qatar. The Doha hotel is set to open in July with 583 rooms. “The owning company is about to invest US $18 million,” says Willis, who reveals it will include six bars and 12 restaurants.
“A long standing GM there, Gordon MacKenzie, will take it through the next stage in its life and will do a fantastic job.”
The Missoni Doha hotel will follow in 2015 with 200 rooms and 70 suites, but it is not only in Qatar that the brand is seeing fantastic growth. “What can the growth be in the region?,” asks Willis.
“I don’t think anybody knows and I certainly wouldn’t like to put a figure on it, because if you look at where we’ve come from in the past few years, it is huge. Even with the recession, I don’t see us slowing down too much, that’s for sure.”
One aspect that could have knocked Willis’ confidence is the political turmoil in the region he has adopted.
“While we have hotels such as Tripoli, which is a tough location, we have a great team there who are totally focused on the business, safety and security and maintaining the brand standards in what is a very difficult market, and they’re doing a wonderful job. It’s our function to make sure they have support at the end of the telephone, through physical visits to the hotel, by the regional team and myself.”
Whether he is in the UK, Asia or the Middle East, Willis says that the job doesn’t really differ: “We work in a sector driven by the customer, and the customers in our hotels have an expectation of the brand and it is our job to exceed this expectation.
This is a key focus for us through brand standards, ethos, our ‘yes we can’ attitude, and those challenges and opportunities are the same wherever you work. People want quality, attention to detail and a smile whether you’re in Southend or South Africa.”