GLOBAL LEADERS: Gavin M. Faull

2020 WAS A YEAR of redirection. The challenges of COVID-19 have had deep ramifications on tourism and the way we live.

Despite these challenges, Swiss-Belhotel International continues to grow its businesses. We have had to focus entirely on local business in all our locations – without exception from The Middle East to Asia to Oceania.

We have had to change our service to meet the market needs and to manage costs. This has been challenging; painful and emotional. Our powerful culture of passion and professionalism has had to step up as we have developed support for each other – support to handle pressures and stress. We are proud of the positive way our staff and management have helped and supported each other and this emotional attitude has flowed through to our guests.

We have developed online personal training sessions which have been most successful in developing and retaining staff. We have introduced TYPSY online training systems which grow the individual where we can monitor progress and where we can identify staff with potential for promotion and job expansion. We have introduced online executive management development through E-hotelier. What a huge motivational success. We call our online training and education SBI Academy.

However, the challenges of staff shortages have been immense. No longer is there global migration as a pool of recruiting qualified and trained staff globally. People cannot immigrate easily; people cannot follow job opportunities around the world with the closedown of immigration and the geographical isolation that many countries have followed in their effort to control the spread of COVID.

This has caused many operational difficulties and has forced multi-tasking and job sharing. But we are an adaptable industry and Swiss- Belhotel International has had to be totally adaptable with staff management and leadership. Another success story for us.

We are expanding into property and apartment management as well as traditional hotel management. Weare is proud and excited about the future expansion and opportunities. This shows the real determination of investors, developers, and hotel management.

These development properties are in Indonesia; Vietnam; Thailand; Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Philippines, and The Middle East.

We are confident that 2022 will see growth. 2021has already shown substantial improvement in hotel performances compared to 2020 especially in Indonesia, Vietnam, and The Middle East. We expect Swiss-BelhotelInternational will double in the number of rooms under management within three years.

We expect that our brand portfolio will continue to expand with our 16 brands and the introduction of our special emotional brands of Maua - which reflects our New Zealand heritage and the Maori culture of Aotearoaand Bohemia Collection of unique boutique products to meet the increasing guest expectation of experiences: environmental sensitivity and a feeling of privacy and uniqueness and personal attention. Swiss-BelhotelInternational continually focuses on guest expectations and the emotional demands of the hotel industry. We face the future with real optimism and confidence. n

Number of hotels and rooms (Globally): 117 hotels and 19,229 rooms

Number of hotels and rooms (Asia-Pacific): 100 hotels and 16,242 rooms

Number of hotels and rooms (Australasia): 5 hotels, 406 rooms

Year first hotel opened: 1991

Year the company was founded: 1987

Brands in the organisation: 16

Head office locations: Hong Kong, Dubai, Jakarta, Bali, Shanghai, Hanoi, Sydney, Auckland