Beach Rotana engineer named region's best

Rajeev Chopra, director engineering at Beach Rotana Abu Dhabi was named Hotelier Engineer of the Year at the Hotelier Middle East Awards.

Chopra, who was the highly commended nominee at the awards in 2012, was awarded for his something performance at the hotel. Over the past year, he has initiated the Energy Conservation Committee at Beach Rotana, which resulted in record energy savings at the property.

Commenting on his win, Chopra, who also won the very first Hotelier Middle East award in 2004 exclaimed: "I was highly commended last year but I was the first winner in 2004 also so it’s nice to repeat history after nine years. It refreshes all my memories. It’s been a long journey."

"Back then I was in Kuwait with Hilton and now I've been Rotana for the last six years and it’s a different company but again, you work hard and you're recognised wherever you go. So it’s a wonderful experience and being in Dubai and Abu Dhabi is wonderful and being recognised at the hotel is good," he added.

Chopra is now overseeing the four year renovation at the hotel, the master plan for which he created. Over the past 18 months, he has directed the renovation and maintenance of Prego’s, Brauhaus and Zen the Spa.

He said: "We have set a trend this year, during Ramadan I turned around our most popular restaurant, Prego’s within five weeks. Next year we will be doing two restaurants in Ramadan. It will be the seafood restaurant Finz and Rodeo Grill, the steakhouse, and in parallel we will be working on the complete renovation of 152 rooms. So it’s a busy year ahead with a lot of work but lots of challenges to enjoy."

Juggling several tasks at once comes naturally to Rajeev Chopra, who is also working on implementing a compost machine at Beach Rotana to reduce waste as part of the property’s corporate social responsibility plan.

The award was Beach Rotana’s first of two gongs of the night and was presented to Chopra by Somer Gundogdu, vice president for MENEA cluster Sealedair/Diversey Care.

Other nominees on the shortlist included Paul Aychouh, director of engineering at Al Bustan Rotana Dubai; Anand Mungre, assistant chief engineer at Yas Viceroy Abu Dhabi; Regi Thomas, engineering manager at The Ritz-Carlton Abu Dhabi, Grand Central; and Andrew Astley, chief engineer at Al Qasr, Madinat Jumeirah, who was highly commended by the judges.