Campbell Gray bemoans destructive profit whips

Hotelier Gordon Campbell Gray is infuriated with the concept of the area vice president “who comes in to whip up the profits” but ultimately leaves destruction in his wake.

“I find it terrible the idea that everybody on their watch wants to make more money but you do see brands and companies very damaged through short term goals — everybody working for me is about long-term, it’s not about making money this year, it’s about making sure we’re in great shape through the recession, through everything and we’ve ridden through that very well," Campbell Gray enthused.

“When it’s your own money you take it more seriously and if you have three of us investing in a project we want to be sure we know what we’re doing — I think that makes the big difference.”

Following on from the success of Le Gray, Beirut, Campbell Gray is looking at two more projects in Lebanon — “one will be by the seaside and one in the mountains”.

In total, he said there were six hotels at the design stage, including one in Montpellier, France and an environmentally-considerate hotel in Grenada in the Caribbean.

In addition, there is the potential to takeover the management of seven hotels, revealed Campbell Gray.

“Somebody wants actually to slot their company into mine and it comes with seven hotels ready made. I don’t know if that’s something I want to do, I want to be really careful. I have no vast expansion plans but I’m very open to taking on two or three, because it take so much time to create a hotel,” he said.

“I think good design takes time, the art collections take time, recruiting takes time, and I just think ‘let’s all slow down and do it beautifully and make it work’ rather than roll it out. I don’t have some plan to roll out x number of hotels and sell them — everything is built to last.”