Shaza's pre-launch preview

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Michel Novatin.

New Shaza Hotels chief executive Michel Novatin gives Hotelier Investor a sneak peek on the work going on behind the scenes to deliver a regionally specific hotel brand with local flavours.

What are your immediate priorities for the Shaza Hotels brand?

Since I have joined a couple of months ago, I want to make my first priority to create the story for Shaza. We have ideas, but we have to develop them.

We have been in London to speak to some specialists for the non-alcoholic beverages, to invent a new way to serve drinks without alcohol. I have contact with a great chef to look at the food we are going to serve. As you know in this part of the world we have a lot of history and food but it has to be re-looked at and be adapted to today's presentation and today's views.

We are [also] designing rooms that are different to what you can [find elsewhere]. Right now we are going around the Middle East with focus groups to find out what people really expect and want in an oriental style way of life.

We are looking at the Hamman [for example] - we would like to go more to the Hamman idea like the Syrian type of Hammans that used to exist many years ago - these are the types of things we are working on.

What has been the history of Shaza to date?

The story is quite nice. Four and a half years ago the chairman of Guidance Financial Group [Mohamad Hammour] came to see me and said ‘I have a dream - I would like to create a Middle East hotel company that respects the culture of the orient and the Middle East'. So I said yes.

There is really no hotel company that does this. There are very famous companies here like Jumeirah, which are big machines that basically run the hotels in the American style.

What we would like to do is create the hotel chain that respects the culture and the spirit of this part of the world. A bit like Mandarin Oriental [for the East] - it is something that doesn't exist in this part of the world.

You have Rotana and Jumeirah, which are very good companies, but their hotels are basically like normal hotel chains, very good but you do not find a special spirit when you walk in there in the fragrance, the music, or the food.

We have many ideas that have to be developed in the next six months.

So when are we going to see the first Shaza Hotel?

At the end of 2010.

Where will that be?

It will probably be in Dubai or Marrakech, one of the two. Or probably both together at the same time. Then immediately after we will have five hotels following which will be Cairo, Bahrain, another one in Dubai, Marrakech and probably Geneva. There is a big business of Arab speaking people from the Middle East in Geneva and even London if possible. Why not?

A lot has been written about whether the hotels will be Shariah compliant.

There are certain things that we will definitely respect because this was our commitment, but we prefer to speak of the oriental spirit and the oriental spirit happens to have Shariah compliance and therefore no alcohol. But we don't want to make it sound like an absolute rule; it is just part of the culture. We don't want it to sound negative.

But will unmarried couples be able to stay there, for example?

Today, if you look at the number of people who are not married in Europe, half of the people live like ‘normal' people with children and a house, but are just not married. If we want to have 40% of customers from the GCC we also have to look to the way of life of the rest of the world.

This is a good example of the Shariah compliance with certain rules that are part of the oriental and Middle East way of life. Like the Hamman; we will have Hamman for the ladies and a Hamman for the men, but we are not living in the 1900s any more.

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