Crowne Plaza Dubai's 'Spider-Man' takes award

Hotelier Middle East Awards judges broke all the rules when it came to naming the winner and runners up of the Unsung Hero of the Year category.

Strong nominations this year in the Unsung Hero of the Year category, sponsored by Ronai, led to long discussions amongst the 12-strong judging panel leading to a twist in rules with the naming of one firm winner and two runners up.

Leading the five shortlisted candidates, and being presented the award by Ronai, was Crowne Plaza Dubai’s Ifthikar Hussain. He impressed the panel for his dedication to his position for the past 20 years.

Hussain has not only been affectionately named Spider-Man by his colleagues, but has gone over and beyond his duty with a passion to care for his colleagues even when off duty, ensuring the highest scores during an internal IHG audit and even in one instance coming to the rescue when one colleague become stuck when a crane failed to operate.

Talking to Hotelier Middle East, an over excited Hussain said it was a good feeling to be named Unsung Hero of the Year during the evening and that was extremely happy with the achievement.

Closely missing out on the prestigious title of Unsung Hero of the Year were Crowne Plaza Bahrain’s Kaliyamoorthy Muthu and InterContinental Doha the City’s Hezron Jeremiah Onyango.

The full shortlist for Unsung Hero of the Year, along with the reason for why each were chosen can be found here.

The Hotelier Middle East Awards 2014 was held at the InterContinental Dubai Festival City. The event was supported by Du, A. Ronai, Restonic, MLA, Diversey, Arecont Vision, Canon, MMI, TCL, Horeca, Patchi, Pulsar Foodstuff Trading, Amir, and Julius Meinl.