THE INTERVIEW : ALFRED PISANI
Façade of the Corinthia St . Petersburg , Russia
Last year — notwithstanding problems with hotels in Tripoli and Tunis and interest in Egypt , where we suffered — things are improving .
H : Can you describe how you managed in Tripoli during the revolution in Libya ?
AP : Because we were owners as opposed to pure managers , we had two considerations : to evacuate our management people ( 150 expats on staff ), but do we evacuate to an extent that the property is closed , and what happens after that ? Will we come and find a property to operate ? We spoke to eight
senior executives in the hotel and eight in the residential village we service and told them the decision is yours . To our contentment , we did actually have people who said , “ Yes I will stay , not only for the property , but because I want my colleagues to have a place to come back to in two or three weeks .” At that moment we were thinking like that . So we kept both properties open . We were the only people who did that .
Obviously there was tremendous concern . There were the wives and families of the people there asking what was
Event setup at the Corinthia St . George , Malta going to happen and that they wanted them back , and it was not an easy time . One was constantly watching the news with heavy tank battles and tremendous destruction . As the situation dragged on , we wondered what would happen , with the invasion of Tripoli inevitable . Would we see the destruction that took place in other villages ?
It was around the 28th of August ( 2011 ) when suddenly there were pockets all over town rising up and taking over . There was fighting , but no heavy artillery or tank warfare . It was just handguns . But for 36 hours , the situation was frightening . We immediately phoned the national transitionary embassy to send military people to protect our properties . Within a half an hour we had over 100 uniformed personnel on either property making sure no one came in and created havoc . It was a hair-raising , frightening situation . But we remained open . We were accommodating visiting delegations from UN and African states in constant discussion , and we serviced locals who thought they would be safer at the hotel . We had a trickle of turnover at 12 % to 15 % occupancy .
When the situation finished , within two months expats started coming , business people started coming and we started seeing a revival of the economy . We are looking forward to an election this summer and that the country will take its destiny in its hands in a mature way , and I have great hopes this will be the case .
Once the situation calms down , I would like to believe there will be a tremendous boom of development . We have taken the position to take further developments . We want to build a
40 HOTELS June 2012 www . hotelsmag . com