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Boom time for Pakistan’s hotel industry

Biggest challenge remains human resources

By Kamal Siddiqi

ISLAMABAD: Philippe Charraudeau, General Manager for Islamabad Serena Hotel says that his property is the "best hotel in Pakistan." He says that he does not make this claim out of any false pretensions and that both the service and the hotel itself force people to come to this conclusion.

For Charraudeau and other hoteliers like him in Pakistan, this is boom time.

Average occupancy rates in Islamabad alone were put at 90 per cent for major hotels in 2005. It is expected to be the same in 2006. This is an impressive figure by any account.

Charraudeau says that these days it is sometimes difficult to find a room in the federal capital owing to the rise in business. The Serena Hotel, sensing the bright prospects for the industry, is already adding another 200 rooms and suites, expected to be completed in the next two years or so.

Things were not as rosy as this a couple of years back. Owing to different kinds of political problems faced by the country, as well as negative travel advisories for Western visitors, Pakistan was not a priority destination.

Charraudeau says that as a result, foreign businessmen were also reluctant to come to the country and fortunes for the country’s hotels were not very promising.

But this gradually changed over the past couple of years, for which Charraudeau and others in his profession credit the present government and other factors.

Owing to a change in the business environment and a turnaround of the economy, the businessmen are now flocking to Pakistan. Other international visitors are also coming into the country. Unfortunately, the tourists are still not coming in but Charraudeau feels that hotels can be an effective vehicle to attract tourists as things settle down in Pakistan.

He says that once international hotels come into the country and set up shop, Pakistan will come onto the radar screens of international tourist destinations.

At this point, domestic tourism is not being tapped either. For the Serena Hotel, 65 per cent of its guests are foreign visitors. For many of those visiting, the hotel is the only window that they have to Pakistan.

"In some instances, it is all they see of Pakistan, so that is why we make sure that they have a very pleasant experience," says the GM, who was earlier working in the same capacity at the high profile Burj-Al Arab Hotel in the UAE.

He says that it was the challenge of setting up a hotel that attracted him to Islamabad. He has done it before as well. He has no regrets and for four years he has been working at this place.

Charraudeau started his work in the industry as an apprentice waiter in his native France. He has worked in a number of hotels since then, including the Mandarin Oriental, the Regent Hotel, Kempinski, the Oberoi and more recently the grand Burj-Al Arab. The challenges of Islamabad continue to excite him and he says that he is a "hands-on" GM, spending more time on the floor and less in his office.

His biggest challenge, he says, is getting the right human resources. Today, his hotel employs 550 people. When they initially hired staff, they received thousands of applications. "We have an interesting mix of people that we have hired. Thirty per cent have some experience in the industry while 70 per cent have no experience, we train them ourselves," says Charraudeau.

The absence of a good hotel training institute means that Pakistanis interested in this field have the option of going abroad to complete their studies. Another option comes from hotels like the Serena, which give on-job training. So in other words, the Serena Islamabad has become a sort of training academy.

Initially, the staff turnover at the hotel was high. "There were some people that left because they felt this was not what they wanted to do. Then there were some whom we felt we could not retain," says the hotel chief, adding "now the turnover is not that high but there are employees who leave because of good offers from abroad. The hotel chain enjoys a good reputation internationally for the quality of its human resources.

Another problem is cultural. "People do not consider the hospitality business a ‘good’ profession because of which we sometimes have problems," says Charraudeau. This is true across the board for most hotels in the country. As a result, many bright young employees have second thoughts after they join because of family pressures. Some feel that they don’t want to be known as a waiter in a hotel no matter how good the working conditions are.

At the end, however, Charraudeau says that the whole effort is worth it. He has seen employees blossom as they come into their own at the hotel after a year or so. As an industry, the hospitality business is taking off in Pakistan. New hotels are coming up not just in Islamabad and Lahore but also places like Rawalpindi. Occupancy rates for major cities, including Karachi, are high.

Hoteliers hope that they can continue to carry with this streak of good business as this will help the country in a number of ways. It will help open up tourism besides giving jobs to thousands of unemployed Pakistanis. The industry is now in take-off mode.