06. Mark Willis, Area Vice President for the Middle East and Turkey, The Rezidor Hotel Group
Willis is steering The Rezidor Hotel Group through its spree of signings and recruitments, while empowering employees with progressive policies
Speaking to Hotelier, Mark Willis, who is the area vice president for the Middle East and Turkey with the Rezidor Hotel Group, says: “We are now in our third consecutive year of record signings in the Middle East and Turkey and even more importantly, our successful openings within the past year and all of these are testament to the achievements of our team.”
In the last year, the operator has signed Radisson Red, its new lifestyle select brand, in Dubai and Jeddah. The biggest new entry for the group, however, is the property signing in Iraq due to open in 2018. Willis adds: “However I’m keen to draw attention to our growth outside the main cities in both KSA and Turkey, where we remain a leader in the hotel industry for doing so.”
In 2015, The Rezidor Hotel Group reported a 1.5% increase in RevPAR and a revenue increase of 6.4%.
The EBIDTA margin increased by 10.1%, alongside continued growth in signings, openings and conversions, where Rezidor passed the 100,000 rooms in operation milestone.
Overseeing a team of more than 8,000 people in the region, Willis comments: “I believe that no good leader accomplishes anything on their own. I am very fortunate to have a strong and dedicated team around me and everything that we achieve is a shared success.”
He’s keen to emphasise the importance of people, and says he was involved in Rezidor’s continued employee empowerment journey. “Locally, we have doubled the size of our workforce in the office, whilst at the same time reducing e-mail traffic by over 40%. I much favour face-to-face interaction. Finally, I have introduced a ‘no travel week’ in order to ensure that my team can interact at the most important time of their working month.”
Adding to the existing Women in Leadership initiative in the Middle East, Rezidor has launched an enhanced maternity leave policy, claiming to be the region’s first hospitality company to have done so. “We are the first hospitality company to promote a female manager in KSA (at the Radisson Blu Jeddah); we have also increased our female employees in the Kingdom and the region,” he adds.
Willis concludes: “As a numbers-driven person and as a people development and relationship person, these results give me an enormous feeling of accomplishment.”
By the numbers:
3.5 Number of years in role
19 Number of years with company
36 Number of Middle East operating hotels
21 Number of Middle East pipeline hotels
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