FRHI Hotels & Resorts is on track to open Raffles Istanbul this summer and, with its reorganisation by region rather than brand recently (TTG Asia e-Daily, December 10, 2013), aims to expand further in Europe and drive ROI for owners.
With the opening of Raffles, FRHI will have all its three brands represented in Istanbul, a city which last Saturday broke ground on a third airport – one that would rival Dubai’s Al Maktoum International as the world’s biggest airport capable of handling 150 million passenger movements a year when completed in 2018.
Raffles Istanbul joins an established Swissotel Bosphorus, while a Fairmont hotel will open in the city in late 2015/early 2016, according to FRHI’s senior vice president-operations Europe, based in Zurich, Aiden McAuley.
McAuley said there is room for all three brands to be in Istanbul.
“Istanbul is a huge city and is becoming even more important as a business centre,” he said.
“We’re starting to grow in Europe in cities such as Istanbul, Baku, Kiev and Moscow, while of course looking at other key cities in Europe such as London and Paris, where we are already represented, for further expansion opportunities.”
In Turkey, it is also opening two other properties in Bodrum this year.
FRHI has 105 hotels in its portfolio now and 50 in the pipeline. MacAuley added: “It is because of this exponential growth that we decided to restructure and put someone to oversee each region – me in Europe, Wayne (Buckingham) in Asia and Samir Nasser in the Middle East, Africa and India.
“We’re able to respond faster, gain better synergies and drive/deliver performance for owners.”
Under McAuley’s charge are 30 hotels in Europe, including six to open in the next two years. Citing an example of better synergies, he said the first regional GM meeting was held recently for the existing FRHI hotels in Europe, whereas before it was more on a brand basis.
“We got together to see how we could contribute to the overall success of the company and the hotels as Europe starts to improve economically, albeit in different phases.
As well, how we could work together to take advantage of parts of the world, such as Asia, that are stronger. Also, getting new hotels to open successfully and helping development to source new projects,” said McAuley.
McAuley is no stranger to the power of Asian outbound, coming from his previous position in Singapore as managing director of Fairmont Singapore, Swissôtel The Stamford Singapore and regional vice president-Asia/Pacific of Swissôtel Hotels & Resorts.
