DIRECTOR INTERVIEW: IHG stalwart Michael Koth

IHG stalwart Michael Koth takes the reins as director of operations in the Northern Gulf and general manager at InterContinental Regency Bahrain after 30 years with the company. He discusses business with James Clarey

Michael Koth was destined to follow a career path into hospitality. His father was the executive chef on the first German cruise liner after World War II, his mother on board as the chief hostess.

“They must have left a virus in me, so the first thing I wanted to do was cook, to the dismay of my father — he thought I should have a normal life,” he explains. “They told me how they went around Jamaica, how beautiful the girls are in Venezuela, what to do in Australia and I guess that, to a young boy, passes over very quickly.”

However, Koth didn’t travel with his parents as a child, as they didn’t want him to have the kind of “disrupted life” that comes with the industry. “I grew up in a very protected family who had a lot of wonderful experiences from their travels, and I thought I could do the same.

“I wanted a job in the industry because I wanted to explore, learn different languages, meet different people, work in different cultures and, somehow, I’ve done all that.”

Initially he wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father, but decided he wasn’t going to stay behind the stove forever. “I always had this approach that knowing how to cook is one of the main ingredients if you want to be successful in the hotel industry.

That is probably not true for everybody, but it was true for me and I gave every hotel I applied to at the time the option — I wanted two apprenticeships in Germany — one as a hotel management trainee and the other one as a chef.”

Eventually, InterContinental in Hamburg, his hometown, agreed to take on the plucky teenager. “They said I should start in the kitchen. And so, I started with my chef apprenticeship. I was quite good at cooking — I was German chef of the year in a bi-annual competition — and so everyone asked, ‘Why did you stop cooking?’. I said that life is more than being behind the stove and I want to do all the rest.”

Once his two apprenticeships were over, Koth wasn’t prepared to settle down: “I went to the general manager and said ‘Now I want to go to London’”. With that, he was soon working at the InterContinental at Hyde Park, behind reception, “brushing up” on his English. He then moved to sales and marketing, becoming the department director at the “wonderful” InterContinental Vienna.

Move to Middle East
Koth’s first visit to the Middle East came in 1995, under the guise of resident manager at InterContinental Bahrain, to which he has returned.

“My firstborn son was born here, so he is by heart Bahraini. We haven’t got the passport yet — we’re still working on this,” he jokes. “We really are true fans of the country.”
His first stint at the hotel lasted two years, after which he moved back to Europe before becoming general manager at the InterContinental Doha, and three years later he joined the InterContinental Cairo.

“I had the pleasure to be GM pre-revolution, during revolution and post-revolution. It was an interesting period. The Arab spring lasted longer than classically three months,” he asserts. It has now been 30 years since Koth joined InterContinental, and he says he has no qualms about not venturing away from the company.

“Maybe I missed something, but I don’t think I have missed anything,” he explains. “In a way, it’s very, very easy with InterContinental, as with many other international brands.

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“They offer you an umbrella home. Within IHG you have the flexibility to change brands, if you wish, although you have one main employer,” he adds.

“Changing countries, changing brands, changing properties, changing people, changing focuses gives you — every two or three years if you wish — a new understanding and a new learning. To do that with one employer I find incredibly rewarding, as you get to know them and they get to know you.”

Although based in Bahrain, Koth is now also director of operations for the Northern Gulf for IHG, overseeing properties in both Bahrain and Kuwait. “We’ve got an exciting project coming along in Kuwait,” he says.

“It will be a first-time presence of InterContinental in Kuwait and it’s a stunning property. With that addition in mid-2013, we will have four properties in the country — two Holiday Inns, one Crowne Plaza and one InterContinental.

“It’s been under construction for about three years, it took longer than expected and slowed down at the beginning of the crisis in 2009. But the building is topped out and they are doing all the cladding now, so we are very confident.”

However, he is not so upbeat about the immediate future for other developments in his area. “Let’s put it this way,” he says, “Bahrain and Kuwait are probably, at the moment, not the two GCC countries which are most prospering in comparison to developments in the UAE, KSA and Qatar.”

Northern Gulf outlook
Koth says that although this is the case, spirits in the countries haven’t been dampened, and five-star hoteliers in Bahrain took a “collective step” last year, “as a reactive measure and as a proactive tool to collectively lower their prices”.

He says that this has helped open the hotels up to new markets, as traditional leisure and KSA guests have been taken by four-star properties opening in Juffair.

“February 14 2011was a unique date for this country and occupancy rates at that time were depressed into the 10s, not even the teens. So, in comparison, it is a great growth. But, still, 40, 45 or even 50% wouldn’t make any hotelier, nor any operator, nor any owner, really happy, so we are still working on getting more.”

In Kuwait, he says occupancy has recovered somewhat and, now, “is well above 60%”. He adds: “I don’t think Kuwait is seeing very bad times, actually. They are doing very well.”

The hotelier’s biggest challenge, he says, is in his hotel in Bahrain — keeping his staff “engaged, motivated, encouraged and always striving for more”. “In times of difficult business, it can often go the other way,” he adds.

Koth plans to combat this by “appraising and rewarding, but also stretching and challenging, and being incredibly sociable”. “Being one family that works together is a very rewarding tool in the diverse mix of nationalities that we employ here.”

For the coming two years, Koth says that his main aims are to “consolidate what we’ve got, improve on what we have and work on seeing more travellers frequenting Bahrain as a destination”.

However, he adds, that he “can’t do this alone, so we have to work collectively with our competitors and with the government, the exhibition centre, and the ministry of culture, hand in hand to get the message out”.