He who dares wins

By Diana Milne, Editor

As one of the Middle East’s biggest home-grown hoteliers the Rotana Group has been instrumental in building the region’s tourism industry. And as its founder Selim El Zyr tells Diana Milne, it will let nothing stand in the way of its success.

“The challenge of yesterday was how to get enough resources to manage all the hotels efficiently. The challenge of today will be how to remain in business”
-Selim El Zyr, Rotana

Rotana is not a company that is afraid of taking risks. Among the destinations where its hotels are located are Erbil in the Kurdish area of Iraq and Khartoum in Sudan. And in December it hit the headlines by announcing plans to open a five star luxury hotel in Baghdad's high security Green Zone - the only one of its kind in the war-torn city.

Iraq may not be every hotelier's first choice of location, but Rotana President and CEO Selim El Zyr sees high potential for his 225-room  Baghdad hotel: "It's going to be right opposite the American embassy. There are a lot of diplomats that come and go in the area and everybody that comes to Baghdad will have to stay in our hotels because the other hotels are in a very poor condition after the war he says, whilst admitting a lot of people were "astonished" by Rotana's announcement. "That is Rotana. We always go to places where nobody else goes and that is why we are pioneers in this field. We don't mind taking risks, not at all," says El Zyr.

It is a good thing that Rotana is fearless because the company is operating in a fiercely competitive environment. The tourism boom in the GCC has attracted the world's top hospitality players and as a local company, Rotana must fight hard to stay in the top league. El Zyr believes that it is precisely the fact that Rotana is a local brand that has ensured its popularity. In a recent regional brand awareness survey it was voted number 18 in the top 100 brands in the Middle East, an accolade El Zyr is justifiably proud of: "If we remain at this level we'll be very lucky because there are some great, large brands in the  survey such as Emirates Airline and Etihad Airways. The Rotana brand is associated with trust. People trust us. There are no surprises when it comes to the Rotana hotels. You know what you get in advance, we deliver on our promises and this is how we are in business."

Another of the company's strengths says El Zyr is its knowledge of the Middle East market - giving it the edge over international rivals. "Our clientele knows that we are experts in the Middle East market. That is our particular selling point," he says. The Rotana Group is also diversifying into providing unique product offerings, in particular Rayhaan - a brand of hotels which adheres to Arab cultural values and beliefs, which El Zyr says he believes has strong potential particularly in Saudi Arabia, but also in cities across the world. Indeed he goes as far as to say there is enough demand for alcohol free hotels in every city in the world: "I think that in every city there will be space for one or two of these hotels. They will be attractive to Arabs, Turks, Iranians and any people that do not consume alcohol."

Rotana has grown rapidly since it started in 1993 with just two Dubai hotels. Today its properties span the Middle East and North Africa and by 2012 it plans to have a portfolio of 65 hotels. Part of the reason behind its rapid expansion is that it has grown at the same time as the UAE has grown as a tourist destination. It has played a big part in both creating and profiting from the region's tourism boom and El Zyr is particularly excited about plans to develop Abu Dhabi  as a global travel destination.  The Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority has announced plans to open 29 additional hotels in the emirate and projects being built there include Yas Island and Saadiyat Island. Rotana  will be managing 3000 of the additional rooms to be created in hotels there including a 259-room property on Yas Island. "Abu Dhabi has all it needs to be a tourist destination," says El Zyr. "It has fantastic beaches, beautiful islands and now construction is happening to build super luxurious hotels. Abu Dhabi does not compete with Dubai - it complements it. It has more of a focus on cultural tourism and will have some of the world's most exclusive museums."

He is all too aware, however, of the effect the global economic downturn could have on the plans for Abu Dhabi - revealing that occupancy rates at his own hotels have already dropped by up to 15 percent compared to the previous year. El Zyr says he is determined to ensure Rotana's standards don't drop as a result: "This situation will be very challenging because when occupancy drops, rates drop and the natural result would be that quality would also suffer. What we will try to do is to avoid compromising on quality in order to ensure a better market share."

El Zyr's experience in the hospitality industry means he is keen to take a hands-on approach to running hotels and ensuring that standards are kept high. He studied at Cornell and Columbia Universities in the US then trained at L'Ecole Hóteliére de Lausanne in Switzerland. He started his career as assistant chief steward at the Waldorf Astoria in New York where a serendipitous turn of events meant he was quickly promoted to the top spot: "I was appointed as the assistant but then the chief steward ran away," he explains.  From there he worked in Madrid, Germany, Cairo, Montreal and the UAE. He set up then sold a fast food business in Lebanon then moved to Abu Dhabi to work for the Abu Dhabi National Hotels Company as manager of one of the hotels. In 1992 he and the chairman of the Abu Dhabi National Hotels Company decided to strike out alone and set up their own hotel business, starting with the Beach Rotana hotel in Abu Dhabi then with the Al Bustan Rotana hotel in Dubai.

El Zyr is passionate about working in the hotel industry, but says he doesn't always enjoy being a guest in his own properties: "If you asked the manager of the best hotel in the world if he'd like to stay there, he'd say 'no get me out of there, I don't want to stay there'."

He's the first to admit that his is a "dream job" by most people's standards and says his favourite hotels to stay at if he is off duty are those run by the Four Seasons or Six Senses groups, or his original training ground the Waldorf Astoria in New York. But he knows that the year ahead will be tough with tourist numbers hit hard by the global economic downturn: "The challenge of yesterday was how to get enough resources to manage all the hotels efficiently. The challenge of today will be how to remain in business, to retain market share and to stay profitable in the economic conditions that are prevailing in the world.

Company history
Rotana Hotel Management Corporation (Rotana) was founded in 1992 by a partnership between, Nasser Al Nowais and Selim El Zyr, who were joined three years later by Nael Hashweh and Imad Elias.

Operating as Rotana, it opened its first property in Abu Dhabi in 1993 and is today one of the leading hotel management companies within the Middle East and North Africa.

Rotana's is aggressive expansion plans have seen the company grow from two properties in 1993 to a total of 65 by 2012. The many new projects in the pipeline confirm the company's intention to have a Rotana-managed property in all the major cities throughout the Middle East and North Africa within the next five years.

This article was first published in Business Management Middle East in March 2009: www.busmanagementme.com/article/Issue-5/Human-Resources/He-who-dares-wins.