He adds: “What made this mission special is that we opened our beach club in March. You have this interesting tension between having one part that is operating, and one part that is still in pre-opening. You need to split your brain in half — one operational half, one pre-opening half. That has been an interesting part of my everyday life.”

Schneider is keen to ensure he hires the right talent. He says: “In every good hotel, it always starts with talent, training and empowerment of talent. If you get this right, you can make yourself as a GM almost obsolete. In this way I’m trying to create a system where every individual has the skillset, the knowledge and the empowerment to be able to run his operation like an entrepreneur.”

He likens this to standalone restaurants with an entrepreneurial edge where the “battle for every customer is genuine”. He adds: “In many hotel restaurants you still have this feeling that guests come and go. I feel this happens very often because in hospitality, especially in hotels, we try to squeeze people in such a tight corset of standard operating procedures, dos and don’ts... and with this we lose the spirit — and spirit is usually what guests are coming for.”

The general manager is convinced Nikki Beach Resort & Spa has this spirit. He says the team and the brand are focused on intuition and soft values. “This makes us so successful. We have hosted just short of 100,000 guests at the beach club in six months. When you look at the feedback we’re getting, it’s not that it’s one of the most luxurious propositions from the hardware but that it’s a meaningful place when it comes to genuine interaction between guests, staff members, music, entertainment and product. This is what we will also see at the overall resort.”

Focusing on people is the hotel’s director of talent resources & development, Yvonne Wang, who joined the team at the beginning of October 2016. She says she is keen to continue the work carried out in the pre-opening stage when it comes to recruitment and training. She says: “In the post-opening stage, we need to focus on retention and engagement to make sure that the best talent that we have acquired will be engaged and stay with us. We have a really diversified talent force from different backgrounds and different experience.”

One of the challenges she faces is the breakdown of the employee demographic. “When we look at the age demographic, we have over 50% millennials and our leadership is unique where around 80% are Gen Y. So we need to keep them interested and passionate about their work.”

In addition to creating 360-degree engagement overviews for each employee, Wang says she will focus on tailored training based on people’s roles — especially for those not used to the lifestyle service offering — and behavioural training.

When it comes to the target market, while Schneider says the customers will be a global mix, there is a “unique buy-in from the GCC”, especially from the UAE. “We were, for instance, not expecting to be so family-centric, but we see a lot of demand from young families.

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