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BUSINESSAgenda | Spring 2016
Society Photos: Alan Carville
“I treat life like a book, in which you have chapters that start and end” Telling Winston Zahra Snr’s story
To many, Winston Zahra Snr is a name synonymous with the local tourism sector. For the first in the Business Agenda’s new series of veteran interviews, the respected businessman shares the story of his impressive career with Sarah Micallef, revealing how he went from two rental cars to five successful hotels.
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mpeccably dressed in a sharp suit with matching tie and pocket square, which he confidently points out “should always either match or contrast completely”, Winston Zahra Snr is at once energetic and easy-going, with a palpable enthusiasm for a sector within which he has been directly involved for the past 45 years. While it may be hard to believe, the Chairman of Island Hotels Group – who had developed five hotels by the time the group was sold in a €50 million acquisition deal last year – started his working life as a school teacher. “I went to St Michael’s Training College and intended to be a teacher for the rest of my life,” Mr Zahra recalls, adding that it was at college that much of his character was built. But, after teaching for nine years, he chose to change direction – setting up a business with his brother Tony. At a time when the local tourism industry was still in its infancy, the two decided to start a car hire company. “When Malta gained its Independence in 1964, tourism was chosen as one of the pillars of the economy,” Mr Zahra says, explaining that he and Tony saw an opportunity, despite not having much money to begin with. “I think we had about Lm200 (c €465) between us. We bought two cars and started renting them out, and with every Lm100 we managed to make from renting those two cars, we bought another car, and another and another,” he continues. Realising that they “needed tourists to rent the cars”, the brothers decided to set up a travel company called Alpine Travel, which still exists today, and went on to expand into insurance and manufacturing. In 1971, at a time when the majority of tourism was coming from the UK, the Zahras invested in a tour operating company in Sheffield, eventually relocating it to London, which proved to be very successful.
“We were building up a vertical operation,” Mr Zahra says, looking back on this formative time. “The tour operating was feeding the travel section, and the travel section was feeding the car hire. But when I went into business my dream was always to have a hotel, and eventually it came true.” In 1979, the Zahra brothers partnered up with the Rizzo family to build Malta’s first aparthotel – the Riza. “At that time, the banks were not lending money for hotel building due to a government policy, and we didn’t have enough to build, so we entered a partnership,” Mr Zahra explains. Unfortunately however, this only lasted five years; after which, we were bought out,” he says, admitting his disappointment in losing his ‘baby’ – so much so that he decided to retire.
“When I went into business my dream was always to have a hotel, and eventually it came true.” In 1985, Winston Zahra Snr sold his 50 per cent sharehold of the company to his brother Tony and went into retirement. He was 45 years old. “I spent about six months in retirement, until Zaren Vassallo, the Riza hotel contractor, approached me to manage his hotel – the Bugibba Holiday Complex – which at the time was a 220 bed hotel very similar to the Riza,” Mr Zahra smiles. The offer developed into an equally shared partnership, and saw the businessman back at the helm of his own enterprise. Looking back, Mr Zahra admits that at first, he considered the hotel as a hobbyhorse of sorts, but quickly began to feel excited about the business again, and started looking to expand. “I was young and still had a lot of energy,” he
chuckles, adding with a smile, “even now I still have a lot of energy!” The partners set their sights on a piece of land in St George’s Bay which they thought would be ideal for a five-star hotel, but it was not to be: despite discussions with the government and a letter of intent in hand, the land was given to a French company instead. Shaking off his disappointment, Mr Zahra moved on, until one day as he was leaving the Bugibba Holiday Complex, he was struck with an idea to expand it. “I thought, ‘there’s this big piece of land… what are we doing trying to build somewhere else?’” The resulting extension took the hotel from 220 beds to nearly 1,000 beds, going from employing 20 members of staff to 200. Once again, Mr Zahra took care of the project management, and the build was pulled off in a remarkably short time – starting in September 1989 and finalising the following June. Fresh from the success of the Bugibba Holiday Complex extension, we began looking for another hotel in 1992. The old Salina Bay hotel was up for sale and the pair took the plunge. “It only had 110 rooms when we bought it, and was in a devastating state,” says Mr Zahra, who was happy to don his project management hat once again to gut and extend the hotel. It was reopened as the Coastline in 1994. “It became a benchmark for four-star hotels,” he maintains proudly, adding that they invested heavily in making it a nice place to stay. “I believe that we have a moral obligation to tourists, who save up their money to come here on holiday. We have an obligation to supply good accommodation, good food, value for money and service with a smile. I have always believed in this and still do,” he affirms. Meanwhile, as work was being carried out at the Coastline, an idea for a separate company was born at a party held at Mr Zahra’s house. “I normally engaged an outside caterer for such
events, but I thought, we’ve got our own staff, why not do our own catering?” As it happened, Winston Jr had just returned from his studies abroad. He took charge of the catering arm of the company and began building it into the successful Island Caterers we know today.
which joined as experts in running the casino. “We won the tender, which was for 10 years, but stayed for 12, throughout which I was the chairman. It was very successful while it lasted, but unfortunately we lost it when it was up for tender again at the end of our lease.”
The paint had barely dried at the Coastline when the partners were approached by the same French company that had acquired the St George’s Bay site years earlier. They wanted to sell, and after some negotiating, Mr Zahra and Mr Vassallo agreed to buy. A target date of two and a half years was set for building the Radisson SAS Bay Point Resort, which Mr Zahra cut down to 18 months once works had started. “I always believed that you have to build in the shortest amount of time possible. We had just finished building the Coastline and were quite cash strapped, but by that time, the banks were lending money to build hotels, so we took a calculated risk. We made the deadline, and the hotel proved to be another success,” he says.
With Island Hotels and Island Caterers doing well, they set their sights on the Golden Sands in late 2001. After a round of tough negotiations with the Fenechs, the two parties came to an agreement, and Island Hotels Group acquired the old hotel with the intention of refurbishing. Soon after, it was realised that it would be better to demolish the old hotel and develop a purpose-built timeshare resort. It took 26 months to develop the new Golden Sands Hotel.
With three hotels under their belt and staff numbers reaching 600, the pair formed the holding company – Island Hotels Group. The Dragonara Casino came next, for which the government put up a tender. Mr Zahra formed a consortium of the main contenders – the Corinthia, the Westin and Island Hotels as well as Air Malta and Accor,
“I built five hotels – the Riza, the Bugibba Holiday Complex, the Coastline, The Radisson St Julians and the Golden Sands. I always set a date and always achieved that date. I was handson – I used to be on site at six o’clock in the morning and sometimes leave at midnight. This hotel was a special challenge since we had committed ourselves to hold the CHOGM conference in November 2005, but we opened in September, so we achieved our target. The hotel was very successful and still is – I believe it’s one of the best hotels in Malta,” says Mr Zahra. Here Mr Zahra points out that the success of