Laurent Voivenel took office in October 2013 as CEO of hospitality management holdings following a 13-year career with Starwood Hotels & Resorts.
“We may not be as internationally huge as the big names in Dubai but we have exactly the same types of benefits and structure,” explains the CEO. “This is what we’re about; owners do not want to wait three months for an answer.”
Reinforcing the company’s foundations is something Voivenel has tasked himself with following the events of 2011, when these were shaken and almost shattered by the eruption of the Arab Spring, which coincided with the economic crisis. As a result, the company lost eight hotels from its already modest portfolio.
“Things started to slow down, projects that were supposed to take place didn’t; contracts that were signed were cancelled because people ran out of money; others just got scared,” explains Voivenel.
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Two hotels in Syria were lost; one of which was a brand new five-star Coral, and the other part of the collateral damage following the bombing of Aleppo’s Silk Road Souq.
Two hotels that were under negotiations in Libya couldn’t be taken forward and hotels in Yemen and Bahrain were shut down because of poor business and staff security issues. A heritage project hotel in Egypt was undergoing an extension, which was then stopped and the hotel was closed.
“We suffered; no doubt about it,” says Voivenel. “We lost quite a few hotels, but nevertheless the company survived and at the end of the day you look at crises not only as bad things but as an opportunity to grow a little bit stronger. Some smaller companies that weren’t organised went bankrupt and died.”
For this reason it is Voivenel’s mission now to solidify HMH’s presence in the GCC, which he says “will be a stronghold for us when it comes to stabilising our financial commitment in order to move forward”.
“When we have that foundation down and solid we can start to export our knowledge to some countries that may be foreseen as a bit more unstable or volatile, which was my main reason for going to Kurdistan,” he adds.
Demonstrating this foolhardiness, the company is also about to open its third hotel in Lebanon; Coral Beirut Concorde Hotel. “We are in Beirut; every single big company is in Beirut. Is it the safest country? Maybe not. If you want to be an entrepreneur at some point you also have to take some risks. You have to minimise the risks but you cannot avoid them.”
Treading forward with caution, Voivenel says he is “growing the path according to a very specific strategy”.
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