Cristal CEO Peter Blackburn left Rotana in 2006, having worked on 23 openings. With two of his own hotels now open, he is at the helm of what he hopes will be a major rival
Peter Blackburn left his hometown of Sunderland, in the North East of England, in 1976 for the Middle East. Blackburn was a mechanical engineer and, after 11 years, he stumbled into the world of hospitality through a job at InterContinental Hotels Group as a director of engineering.
Since then, he hasn’t looked back, having worked his way up the ladder, and has just signed his fourth hotel after founding Cristal Hotels and Resorts in 2006.
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Blackburn spent nine years with IHG, in London and Egypt, before making the move to Beijing to take up the role of regional director of engineering with Peninsula. “That was a challenge, that one,” he says.
After spending three and a half years there, he eventually left the position and joined the Abu Dhabi-based Rotana group as its vice president for technical services in 1998. “During my years there I climbed, and I developed,” he explains. “I opened 23 Rotana hotels, doing the design stages, planning and pre-opening etc, throughout the Middle East.”
In 2006, Blackburn took a leap of faith – he left Rotana and launched Cristal Hotels and Resorts. Only a year later, and the four-star, 192-room Cristal Hotel opened in Abu Dhabi.
He says the timing couldn’t have been worse for the opening, which was “just at the beginning of the crisis”, but “we opened successfully and we positioned ourselves as one of the top five there”.
“I think we were aggressive in the market. Myself and the team all had 45 years of experience between us in hospitality,” Blackburns explains, “and I think hospitality is a 24-hour business, so you have to be there around the clock.”
“But ourselves, with Rotana, Peninsula and InterContinental, are all top brands. We are used to high standards and we are focused on what the businessman really wants.”
“If you look on Trip Advisor, today in Abu Dhabi, we are at number five and number seven in the ranking of 89 hotels,” Blackburn says.
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