Entering the Power 50 at number 41 is Layia Hospitality CEO Daniel Hajjar. Here, he shares his career history and reveals his secret ambition


Please summarise your career background?
I started out in the industry 23 years ago with the Paris Hilton hotel. Since then, I had the opportunity to work at the front office, to be the youngest night manager in France at 21, then I moved to Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Dubai, Cairo, Beirut before returning to the UAE.

I had the opportunity to be the regional director of sales and marketing for Hilton (for Egypt, the Gulf and Sudan) at 28 and was, at that time, one of the youngest general managers at Hilton aged 29.

My 10-year span with Rotana Hotels as corporate VP sales & marketing and VP operations for Lebanon and Syria was exceptional too.

How long have you been in your current role?
For two years

What do you consider to be your greatest achievements in this post?
Setting up a brand new company from scratch — starting from getting a phone number, a P.O Box number — to getting the right team to support your dreams, to opening the first three properties.

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What are your priorities and ambitions? 
Getting the right people who have the right character, strengthening day after day the foundations, and reaching 15 properties within the next five to seven years.

What was your first job?
Filing clerk within the reservations department at the Paris Hilton back in 1983.

During your career, what has been the strangest demand from a guest?
Actually it was not a demand but a slap in the face! A 70-year-old client came down to the reception, asked for me and just slapped me. Later during the day, he came back to explain that his wife was trying to contact him at the hotel but had been told that he was not staying there. It turned out that he had no booking and did not check-in yet and I was the one who was answering the phone telling his wife that his name was not on our list. She thought that he was in the hotel and that he had requested me not to transfer the call. It was a very weird story, especially because he was 70 and not nice looking!

If you weren't a hotelier, what would be?
A lawyer or a pilot

How would your employees describe you? 
I guess a man with a soul

Tell us an interesting fact about yourself that not many people know…
I enjoy football and have a real passion for flying. I am lucky enough to fly very often but I know that one day, I will fly a plane myself. My son has the same virus. When I am not away, we often go to the airport just to watch planes landing and taking off. I took him, for his birthday, to London on the A 380 — a trip that both of us would, probably, never forget.