Interview: Crowne Plaza Dubai GM Georges Farhat

Two decades after joining the hotel as a management trainee, Georges Farhat is now the general manager of Crowne Plaza Dubai. Hotelier Middle East finds out how he maintained focus to achieve his big ambition

Whenever new people join I give them my example in the speech. I say that if I can do it, I’m sure everyone else can also do it. Where there is a will, there is a way.” Those are the words of Crowne Plaza Dubai general manager Georges Farhat, but it’s a philosophy that barely scratches the surface of his remarkable journey.

Unlike many of his peers in the industry, Farhat’s CV does not read like an itinerary of a world tour, peppered with exotic locations around the globe as their career trajectory takes them towards their goal of being a GM.

Over the past two decades, he has loyally served one hotel. Arriving at the landmark Sheikh Zayed Road property just a few months after it opened, he started off as a management trainee on the food & beverage side of the hotel in 1994. Twenty years on, at the beginning of this year, Farhat took over as acting general manager, landing the role on a permanent basis in July and fulfilling an ambition he never wavered from.

“I put a goal in front of me: I wanted to be a manager and wanted to be a leader,” he says. “That’s why when every opportunity came in front of me or when a position came up I used to fight hard for it, I used to work hard for it and I used to get it.”

That determined attitude was apparent right from the beginning; in his first two years he took no days off work, even coming in on his holidays, spending time in the front office as well as carrying out his F&B duties. It paid off when, in 1997,Farhat was formally brought to the front of house as duty manager.

In his time with the 560-key property, Farhat has worked with two owners and five general managers. And despite only taking on his current role in January, he had already been entrusted with plenty of responsibilities beforehand. “Even though I was the number two, I was sometimes the first person you would see, from guests, IHG and the owner.

“I built trust with my manager to be on the same line, to speak the same language and to support my boss,” Farhat says.

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This is reflected by comments made by his predecessor, James Young, who in an interview with Hotelier Middle East last year described Farhat as the “the heart and soul of the hotel”.

“First you have to be committed to your job,” says Farhat, explaining how he always caught the eye of management. “I have a family and I have kids, but sometimes I don’t see them for a week.

“You have to be customer-focused: I answer my phone 24/7, even on vacation. I never switch it off. If I miss a call, I call back in two minutes, and that’s something I am well-known for. If you want to hear what my bosses will say, they will call me ‘Mr Fixit’ in the company.”

Farhat traces his passion for hospitality back to when he was growing up in Lebanon, in the town of Bikfaya.

“I remember the first time I saw the motel when I was eight or nine years old. I liked the idea of it, with the chimney and the snow, as it was Christmas time. It was new to me; I did not know anything about this. I liked the idea of people coming to the hotel and sleeping there, and since then I’ve liked hospitality, talking to people, serving people and helping people.”

In 1989, at the age of 20, Farhat moved to Canada to work for a family-run pizza restaurant, and he credits his time in the country to nurturing that passion for hospitality.

“I learned the culture and how to be nice to people because it is a multicultural country. I liked Canada a lot because they respect everybody, there is no criticism or racism because all people over there are coming from abroad.”

The offer to join Crowne Plaza as a management trainee came in 1994 and Farhat hasn’t looked back since. So what word of advice would he have for anyone new coming into the industry?

“Firstly to be patient,” he says. “To learn from others is very important. Sometimes you have graduates coming in and they feel that they know more than their colleagues. But of course the people on the floor with the experience know the job. They have to take a step back, look and learn from others and be patient.”

Relentless ambition has taken Farhat a long way already, and he has no intention of resting on his laurels. “My ambition now is to run the hotel as a successful general manager and to build a couple of levels on my CV and of course I want to move to the next step to be an area general manager.

“The only thing I haven’t done is be a pre-opening GM. If a new hotel were to open in Dubai or Abu Dhabi or anywhere in the area where it would fit me, of course I would move to do that.”