Top 12 hoteliers to watch in 2012

Pascal Gauvin

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.

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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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