Mr. Barbier, Can you please tell us about your experi-
ence in the hotel and hospitality industry: when you have
started?
I started my adventure in hospitality 15 years ago in
Warsaw, Poland. After my collaboration with a famous
Polish Restaurateur, I joined the Accor group and went
through an internal cross-training to become General
Manager. I had the luck to meet the right people who
believed in me and gave me a chance in a new and
unknown industry. As I always liked to travel, I imme-
diately saw it as an opportunity to combine work and
hobby.
After 3 years, I got the opportunity to open my first
hotel as General Manager in Katowice, Poland. I ended
my experience in Poland by working at the Head Office
of Accor in Poland and dealing with various topics like
Operations, Marketing, Financial Analysis or even Construction.
The call of Adventure took me then to Indonesia where I was in charge of my first 5-star hotel and then 3 years
in Armenia where I opened the first hotel of the group. I recently relocated to Cambridge, UK for family reasons.
You have previously started up and managed the Ibis Hotel in Yerevan and several years you worked in
Armenia. Can you describe the advantaged and disadvantages of the market and tell us about the nuances that
the manager of hotels should pay attention to?
Opening a hotel with an international brand in Armenia was one of the most exciting and difficult challenges I
experienced. The range of brands present in the country is limited and so is the know-how linked with the expec-
tations of the Operators.
At a macro level, Armenia is a country full of potential. Its political situation has evolved by leaps in the past
30 years and when the issues with neighbor countries are solved, there will be a bright future for tourism. In
the meantime, you have to deal with the limited and expensive access to the country, mostly by plane, which
CHRISTIAN BARBIER
GENERAL MANAGER AT
IBIS CAMBRIDGE CENTRAL STATION
30 • HOTELIER • wwww.hoteliermagazine.net •