CEO interview: Nehme Imad Darwiche, Jannah Hotels

Nehme Imad Darwiche, at 31, is one of the hospitality market’s youngest CEOs.

What guests really care about, he explains, is how fast the internet connection in the hotel is, which he adds, is why Jannah Burj Al Sarab decided to offer the world’s fastest hotel connection.

Guests he continues, care about how long it takes to check in after a long flight, how long porters take to bring the bags to the room, and how much time porters take explaining how TVs and lighting work in the room.

To answer this, Jannah has developed iPad check-in for guests. “I walked into an Apple Store, and there was no cashier. I thought, we could check people in on an iPad, we don’t need a desk.” Jannah staff, he adds, are told not to spend time taking guests through every amenity in the room on arrival. “If the guest really wants to know, there is a video tutorial on the TV they can watch.”

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WhatsApp access to a butler and iPad check-in sound like the technology-enabled hotel of the future, and the overnight stay millennials have been dreaming of. That’s why Darwiche has plans for a new budget brand, aimed squarely at the youngest generation of travellers, for which he sees a gap in the market.

With Bedouin hospitality still a key part of the new brand, but combined with a budget-friendly philosophy, the new hotels will be called ‘BedoInn’.

At the time of discussing this project, Darwiche was still weighing up the prospect of launching the first BedoInn in the UAE, Europe, or the US.

“In our research, we found the difference between a junior suite or a deluxe room means nothing to millennials. What makes a difference to them are the facilities available. So we decided to classify the rooms differently.”

As such, he reveals, each ‘pod’ at BedoInn will be classified as a ‘fitness pod’ with facilities such as a treadmill and yoga mat, or for example, a ‘technology pod’ with facilities for playing computer games.

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