Power 50: 30-21

Hussein Hatata
Vice President – Hotels Division Al Khozama Management Company

Since starting as a room attendant at Al Khozama Hotel in Riyadh in 1978, Hussein Hatata has worked his way up the ranks and immersed himself in training, including stints at Lausanne in Switzerland and Cornell University in the US.
By 1990 he was in a general manager’s role in Saudi Arabia and a decade later was responsible for introducing the butler concept to the country with the opening of Al Faisaliah in Riyadh in 2000.

AKMC owns Hotel Al Khozama and Al Faisaliah Hotel in Riyadh, which are both managed by Rosewood. It also manages Al Shohada Hotel in Makkah and will be managing another two properties in Madinah, with Al Khozama Medina expected to open by the end of the year.

The company is also investing in a hotel at Durrat Arriyadh, its first resort property to be managed through Al Fasialiah, and is eyeing up projects in Jeddah. Hatata remains hands-on in each development.

Lee Tabler, the man driving the next phase of Abu Dhabi’s hotel and tourism industry, moves up the rankings in this year’s Power 50.

TDIC is behind some of Abu Dhabi’s most prestigious projects including two major destinations, Saadiyat Island, which will house the world’s largest single concentration of premier cultural institutions including the Zayed National Museum, the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Museum and the Louvre Abu Dhabi, and Desert Islands, to be one of the world’s largest environmentally sustainable tourism destinations.

So far, five luxury hotels have been announced for Saadiyat Island — Saadiyat Rotana, Shangri-La Hotel, Mandarin Oriental Hotel and Residences, St Regis Hotel and Residences and Park Hyatt Resort — with four more brands expected to be signed. St Regis and Park Hyatt will be the first to open, with delivery scheduled for Q3 2010.

Tabler has already overseen the opening of an Anantara resort at Desert Islands and also Qasr Al Sarab Desert Resort by Anantara, which has already won several awards.

Sami Al-Ansari is recognised for his commitment to diversifying the Middle East’s hotel sector through investment into the InterContinental Hotels Group limited service brand, Holiday Inn Express.

In March this year, Ishraq and IHG opened the 381-room Holiday Inn Express Dubai Airport, the fourth Holiday Inn Express property in Dubai and the largest in the EMEA region by number of rooms.

At the launch, Al-Ansari said he was also looking to expand the brand in other locations within the Gulf, the first of which will be the Holiday Inn Express Manama, Bahrain, due to open in Q4 2011.

Head quartered in Dubai, Ishraq is the exclusive developer of the Express by Holiday Inn hotels brand in the GCC (except Saudi Arabia) and has several other sites under various stages of development in Oman, Doha and the UAE.
The target is 20-plus hotels within a six-year roll-out plan

Prior to joining Ishraq as CEO at its inception in 2005, Al-Ansari was the country general manager for Radisson in Jordan for three years. He had also held numerous executive positions in hospitality, including GM with Holiday Inn Hotels for five years.

In his dual role, Pascal Duchauffour overseas the operations of five hotels, one each in Bahrain, Dubai and Sharm El Sheikh and two in Doha, for prestigious brand Ritz-Carlton.

In addition, he is responsible for the launch of the second Ritz-Carlton in Dubai, The Ritz-Carlton, Dubai International Financial Centre expected by the end of 2010, and The Nile Ritz-Carlton, Cairo, currently undergoing a 30-month makeover.

Duchauffour has also recently overseen a refurbishment at Ritz-Carlton Doha, while another significant renovation and expansion is underway at Ritz-Carlton Dubai.

The company’s presence across the region is set to grow, with Duchauffour involved with the first properties signed for Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, while Abu Dhabi National Hotels recently awarded Ritz-Carlton the contract for the Grand Canal Hotel.

A pioneer of the midscale hotel model in the Gulf, HE Sheikh Mubarak Abdullah Al Mubarak Al Sabah is investing in bringing budget brands to the region.

It was while he was studying in the UK that Sheikh Mubarak had his light bulb moment about the potential for growth in the midscale market in the Middle East.

He contacted Accor, which manages the Ibis and Novotel brands and InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), which runs the Holiday Inn brands.

The group’s first hotel opening was the Ibis Salmiya in Kuwait in March 2008 and in 2009 the Ibis Amman in Jordan and Ibis Muscat Al Khuwayr in Oman followed. In September the Ibis Sharq in Kuwait was due to come on stream and next year the Ibis Seef in Bahrain, Ibis Sharjah in the UAE, and Ibis Sohar in Oman will open.

In 2012 the company has seven more properties due to take shape, and the hotelier is on track to open around 2600 rooms by 2012.

He is passionate about tourism in Kuwait and is actively supporting the development of further infrastructure.

Tapken is another hotelier in the Power 50 who has had a busy year.

Having left Mövenpick, he was appointed group general manager, City Seasons Group of Hotels, before becoming managing director in May.

City Seasons Group currently owns and operates four properties across Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Al Ain. Additional hotels are already under construction in Abu Dhabi and Oman, with international projects in the pipeline.

Tapken has been at the fore of industry events and is not afraid to speak his mind when it comes to sensitive issues which are challenging the hotel sector in the region.

His efforts to raise the profile of the dry City Seasons hotels have been rewarded with increased media exposure of the group and issues around operating a dry hotel model.

“The City Seasons Group has a remarkably established presence in the GCC during the short period since its launch and we are working on expanding our portfolio through the addition of new hotels in key destinations,” said Tapken.

His role heading up Fairmont Raffles Hotels International’s (FRHI) three-hotel development in the Abraj Al Bait complex in Makkah brings Mohammed Arkobi into the Power 50 at number 24.

A Saudi National, Arkobi is responsible for Raffles Makkah Palace, a 213-suite property that opened during Ramadan, the Makkah Clock Royal Tower, a Fairmont Hotel — a 76 storey hotel with 858 rooms — and Swissotel Makkah, due to open in 2011. With many of the FRHI team unable to visit the site, only accessible to Muslims, Arkobi has overseen everything from design and build through to operations.

Arkobi began his career at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs until 1986, when he joined Sahara Airport Hotel, Riyadh. He later joined InterContinental Hotels Group, and was promoted to his previous role as general manager of both the Dar Al Hijra InterContinental Madinah and Dal Al Taqwa Hotel Madinah.

As pre-opening general manager for the 674-room Grand Hyatt Dubai — Hyatt’s largest in the region — Peter Fulton was clearly the obvious choice to head up the company’s regional division.

In his role, Fulton overseas hotels in the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman, as well as properties in India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh.

Since his appointment in 2008, notable achievements include the introduction of Hyatt to Saudi Arabia through Park Hyatt Jeddah and the launch of Grand Hyatt Doha.

Fulton is now focused on growing the company’s presence in the UAE, adding two hotels in Abu Dhabi to the existing portfolio of three in Dubai.

The company’s first hotel in the UAE capital, called Hyatt Capital Centre, will open before the end of this year, while the second will open in early 2011.

The 189-room Hyatt Capital Centre will occupy levels 18 to 32 of the Capital Gate building, part of the development around the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre.

Since taking up his current role as managing director of Premier Inn Hotels LLC, Darroch Crawford has led the opening of three hotels in Dubai and signed deals to launch the limited service brand in Abu Dhabi and Doha.

Following the opening of Premier Inn Dubai International Airport earlier this year, Crawford announced that the company was building its first hotel in Abu Dhabi at ADNEC’s Capital Centre. The 242-room hotel is expected to be ready by September 2011, with development reaching AED 120 million (US $32.6 million).

Most recently, the group announced that it has signed a joint venture agreement to introduce Premier Inn’s “value hotel model” to Qatar.

The first project announced under the JV will be a 200-room hotel to be built at the Doha Education City, an area at the outskirts of Doha which is home to some of the world’s leading educational institutes.

Crawford is a proactive voice in the budget hotel sector in the Middle East, drawing on close to 40 years’ experience as he strives to establish Premier Inn as the region’s leading brand in the value-hotel sector.

Dubai-based hotelier and managing director of hotel owning company Seven Tides Hospitality Michael Scully moves up the rankings in this year’s Power 50 following the successful opening of the group’s first hotel.

Ibn Battuta Gate, a 396-room destination hotel operated by Mövenpick Hotels and Resorts, soft opened in September 2010. The hotel had suffered several delays but Scully and his team pushed forward with the opening this year and entered the peak Dubai season with competitive rates and a fresh, fun offering.

The race is now on to open Mövenpick Deira by the year end, and then the group’s two properties on the Palm Jumeirah — Royal Amwaj Resort and Spa and Oceana, The Palm — in 2011.

Also this year, Seven Tides has opened the West 14th steakhouse at the residences part of Oceana and a beach club, which will be open to guests of Ibn Battuta.