Young hotelier is strong off the starting block

Strategies, marketing plans and visions only formulate one element of the growth and success of a hotel. It is its people that are a measure of its true successes, and none other than young hoteliers fresh off the starting block in their career.

Young Hotelier of the Year, a new category sponsored by Ronai, recognised young hoteliers aged 30 years or below, in any hotel profession, front or back of house who showed drive, passion and drive in becoming the industry’s future leaders. Award judges were concerned with the progression of the nominee since entering the industry, how they have brought a fresh perspective to their hotel management and more importantly, been able to deliver upon these ideas.

InterContinental Regency Hotel Bahrain assistant front office manager Jennifer Lombard Knight’s was a firm winner amongst judges embodying all the talents Hotelier Middle East had in mind when conceiving the Young Hotelier of the Year Award category.

“It is amazing for me for the journey that I have had. From the response I have had from my old team and my new team it is just inspirational for them that they can achieve something from just an early stage.

“You don’t need years and years. If you have new ideas, if you have new initiatives, it is all about the action and the creativity and just putting it into practice that will make it happen for them,” she noted.

Aged just 26, Jennifer is a graduate on IHG’s first AMEA Future Leaders Program, which she joined six years ago. Her passion, creativity and enthusiasm has seen her not only progress through the ranks but achieve remarkable results for her hotels, propelling InterContinental Regency Bahrain from ranking number 13 to ranking number one in India, Middle East and Africa for the online guest satisfaction survey HeartBeat.

She’s credited with outstanding ownership and decision making abilities and has shared her guest experience best practices with IHG properties worldwide, a number of which have already been adopted by others. Jennifer was recently promoted to front office manager at InterContinental Doha - The City and her team are predicting her first general manager posting within a decade.

“I want to be a GM. I want to be an operations leader. I want to be a role model for the people who work for me and inspire me within the operations,” she added.

Other than furthering her own career, Knight aims to inspire those working with her and motivate them in their own roles.

“It is all about inspiring those people to become hoteliers. Those people that do not feel part of the hotel to come and see the big picture of what being a hotelier is all about,” she concluded.

The category formed a hot discussion amongst award judges who found it hard to distinguish amongst the other nominees and elected to award both Nadeem Muhammed Iqbal and Arun Ramakrishnan Highly Commended, the only category to name two runner-ups.