Al Malik, Managing Director Remarkable Hotels and Chairman Oxsana Hospitality, has been attending The Annual Hotel Conference for approximately 14 years.
We caught up with Al during the conference to discuss why he attends the conference in Manchester every year as well as the topics of ESG, corporate travel, and hospitality trends for 2022.
What are your top reasons for attending The AHC this year?
“I've been coming here for 14 years as a small hotelier, but I've also got a group of 200 hotels that I I'm chairman of. The AHC is a masterclass of education. You come here and you know, you walk away feeling like you're up to date, you know what's happening in the industry and you know what you should be doing.
What trends do you think will continue for 2022?
“Having attended the session Rebalancing the 3 Ps: People; Planet; Profit, it’s clear that sustainability and ESG are going to be on the top of everyone's minds.
I'm already thinking about going back home and figuring out how to implement this into my own hotel and how best to educate and inform my members at Oxsana so that they can also replicate that.
Everything in hospitality is moving in the direction of personalisation. From the moment your guests walk into the hotel, how you treat them when they're there, being able to communicate with them instantaneously within the rooms. Using technology to leverage that capability is what’s going to be important.”
What’s causing you the most concern right now?
“We’ve got a lot of problems in hospitality with staff shortages and skill shortages right now. We need to look at how we’re going to use this as an opportunity to train people to work more efficiently. Maybe robotics could automate some of the processes. For example, I should be preparing 100 meals a day, but I've got no staff in the kitchen, so I'm just very lucky that my General Manger is also a trained head chef. And that's the real world we're living in right now.”
When do you expect the corporate market to return and how different will it be?
“This is the million-dollar question and I do think it's on everyone's mind. Bill Gates reckons we will see a 50% reduction in corporate travel, and I’ve read about airlines taking business class seats out of planes. So, it really is anyone's guess but what I imagine is going to happen is a 25% reduction, but I do expect there to be an overall shift and we will see the business come from somewhere else. But it's very difficult to know what's going to happen in the corporate trade. And we will see a similar pattern in MICE, a lot of my members have got these big conferences spaces in London. So, I'm just happy to see that the industry is here, leading by example to say that events are back and hopefully that will show the rest of the market and other companies that we can meet face-to-face safely.”
Keep an eye on our newsletter for more interviews with leaders in the industry. If you missed any of the sessions at The AHC, you can view on demand here.