Mohammed Alshoaiby Saudi Gazette DUBAI/RIYADH – Following plans laid out by the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA) to increase the Kingdom's hospitality sector to $65 billion by 2020, InterContinental Hotels Group's (IHG) COO of India and Middle East Pascal Gauvin said they will be doubling their number of hotels in Saudi Arabia over the next five years. Currently, the Kingdom's hospitality sector is its second largest business sector, estimated at $15 billion in this year's Kingdom Hotel Expansion Summit, which took place in May. “There is a great growth in Saudi Arabia. It has always been, for us, a very important market and our biggest market in the Middle East,” said Gauvin, speaking to Saudi Gazette in Dubai. Gauvin expressed IHG's enthusiasm toward the Kingdom's wishes to develop its hospitality sector. He added that IHG is increasing its focus on domestic tourism, which is growing very rapidly in the Kingdom, in line with SCTA's plans. “Most of our brands are based on domestic markets, where people in the (United) States go from one city to another just for work or to see their families on holidays using the same brands they've become attached to,” he said, citing Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express as examples of these brands. “They feel like they are at home, even if they spend 80 percent of their time outside of their room.” Recently, IHG launched the new, full-service Holiday Inn Meydan in Riyadh, targeting families traveling domestically and younger guests on business trips. The Holiday Inn Meydan is furbished with meeting rooms and conference halls that also cater to Riyadh locals looking for a space to collaborate and work, Gauvin added, which encourages small businesses and the Kingdom's emerging middle class. On IHG's plans to double its presence in Saudi Arabia, Gauvin said: “We already have eight hotels in the pipeline today under construction, which will move us from 22 to 30 in the first phase and we want to grow to more than 40 in the next three to five years. In this market, we will be eventually looking at 80 percent domestic guests and 20 percent international.” “At the moment the focus is more on international tourism, but we know that moving forward there will be more of a balance between domestic and international.” Gauvin added the balance between domestic and international markets depends heavily on the city's size and the nature of its businesses. “Riyadh, Jeddah and Makkah welcome many international tourists, but three cities don't make a country.” IHG employs around 7,000 people in Saudi Arabia operating its 22 hotels, 2,500 of which are Saudis. “This industry is about people,” Gauvin said, stating a focus on their employees' growth within the IHG brand. Gauvin said IHG encourages employees in the Kingdom to speak Arabic and undergo hospitality training via nine IHG academies that tailor their curriculum to the Saudi market with a focus on its culture and traditions. “Our role in IHG is to get vocation into this business by offering fantastic opportunities for people to grow in this business, even starting from being a waiter in a restaurant to a general manager.” “The difference between a local brand and an international brand is the investment we make in our people over time just to make sure we have, in front of customers, the best people.” With a Saudization rate of 40 percent, Gauvin said that ideally IHG's operations in the Kingdom would be 90 percent Saudi because customers appreciate dealing with their own people. Gauvin said it has been influenced heavily from the culture of hospitality in the Kingdom, a culture that goes back centuries. Gauvin, who is from France, said: “Most of my frustration in Europe has been in the culture of people not being open enough to service. We learned a lot here about natural hospitality and we want our customers to experience the same warm, natural, and genuine welcome we felt coming here.” IHG is the largest hotel group in terms of room numbers, with over 670,000 rooms globally across nine different hotel brands operating in over 100 countries around the world.
