In 2017, Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts has already made its debut in Sri Lanka, with the opening of Mövenpick Hotel Colombo, and also in Bali with Mövenpick Resort & Spa Jimbaran.
That’s quite the trajectory, and Chavy says: “The Middle East will always be a focus; there is a good reason why the entire executive committee of Mövenpick is sitting in Dubai even though our headquarters are in Zurich.”
He also says South East Asia is a fast growing and lucrative market, adding that the region is “maybe the most important pocket of growth for us”.
There are no plans, however, to go State-side. Chavy explains: “I have spent the last 10 years of my life in America, it’s a market I know well. Right now it’s not in our plan to look beyond the Atlantic. It’s a very specific market, it’s mass-market driven. Either you go big or you lose. So we will go to America when there is an opportunity to get 20, 30, 40 hotels.”
And obviously, like any other hotel CEO, Chavy has a wishlist of where he’d like to take Mövenpick and where he doesn’t have a deal signed yet. These include hubs like London, Hong Kong, Singapore, Paris, Madrid and Barcelona.
In the Middle East specifically, while Mövenpick is strong in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Dubai, he says the operator is thinking about Abu Dhabi, and just generally having more presence in other emirates of the UAE. Improving numbers in Kuwait and focusing on a high growth market like Saudi Arabia is also on his radar.
All this growth and his wish-list shows that Chavy is committed to the Mövenpick story. He stresses that loyalty is extremely important in this business.
He comments: “Mövenpick is a long-term journey for me; I guarantee that the company will be in a different place four or five years from now in terms of number of units, in terms of strength of the brand, in terms of diversity, in terms of gender equilibrium, in terms of everything we want to be the best-in-class. We have a plan, we have a mission, and we have an amazing board which is very, very supportive.”
As Chavy is a hospitality veteran, I ask what advice he would give hoteliers who want to grow into a leadership position like his.
He says: “Very humbly, my advice would be, spend 100% of your time doing your job description, and then on top of that spend 15% of your time doing benchmark, and 15% of your time doing network and PR, so that’s 130% of your time. As a hotelier, it’s standard.
“Second, ethics, loyalty and honesty will never be negotiable. Be tough on yourself. Do not negotiate with ethics and honesty.
“And if you put all of this in a shaker — your job, networking, benchmarking, ethics, loyalty and honesty — you should be pretty successful. There is no room for chance.”
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