Boutique hotels in Egypt | OB Hotels & Restaurants

Interview with Abdul Baaghil, Managing Director & Co-founder of OB Hotels & Restaurants

Let’s start with Tourism. The latest report released by the Minister of Tourism shows that the first half of 2014 brought 4.4 million tourists to Egypt, which is a 25% drop when compared to the previous year. What would be your personal evaluation of tourism and the hospitality industry in Egypt?

We have experienced a very good pick up in the first quarter of 2014. It has been challenging in general right after the revolution, but there is a pretty good pick up that we are experiencing now. You can see it in many hotels in Cairo. One of the exciting things is that I believe online is becoming very powerful in terms of a booking engine. There is a certain segment of travelers that were not targeted on, from the age of 25 to 40, which are more discerning world travelers. They’ll have to stay in boutique hotels. One of our hotels is actually experiencing this new segment coming in and staying on a higher rate bracket. Actually, if I may say, we are seeing that as a fresh start. The first quarter of 2014 was actually very good in terms of business pick up in Cairo. A lot better than what it used to be in the last two years. I am very optimistic. Egypt has a lot to offer – be it Mediterranean or be it on the Red Sea shores or Southern Egypt, Cairo, Western Desert etc. So there are some very promising years ahead. This would require due diligence, vision and bringing that to reality.

Before we move on to the OB Hotels & Restaurants, can you please share with us a bit of your background?

I am a hotel school graduate from Les Roches in Switzerland. Back in 1992, I moved to the United States, worked in San Francisco with Park Hyatt Hotels in Los Angeles and in Washington with Park Hyatt. I joined MGM briefly back in the opening of Bellagio in Las Vegas back in ’96 as the manager for the Picasso room. Then I joined St. Regis, then the Ritz Carlton Hotel Company as an Executive Committee Member in New York, Sharm El Sheikh, Bahrain, China, Beijing. I did a few openings with them. Right after I became Hotel Manager with the Ritz Carlton Hotel Company, I decided to follow my passion. My passion has always been for the beverage developing new trendy, stylish restaurant concepts. So I started my own company with my partner. We founded OB Hotels & Restaurants. We do boutique hotels more in the line of intimate, individual, experience lifestyles and restaurants. We started that in 2011 and it has just been exciting.

What sets you or your Company apart from your competitors?

We are not about copy-paste. We take each individual project as one with its own personality. It has its own individuality, its own character. We don’t go with manuals that we are going to kind of copy paste to another – no. We give it its own personality be it a hotel or a restaurant.

Can you name and briefly describe your current outlets, the hotels etc?

Currently, we have the Le Riad, which is a boutique hotel with 17 suites in Old Town, Cairo. It’s a beautiful property on the Muiz Li Din Allah Street, close to the holy town of Cairo Fatimid. Then we have an upcoming property of 70 suites and restaurant and a bar called BH 33 in downtown Nairobi. That’s going to come up later this year. We are working on a resort project called Mizar in terms of boutique hotels. That’s what we are doing here in Cairo. It’s more of an urban resort. In terms of restaurants, we are actually developing full concepts for clients in Cairo – full concepts after turnkey. They are very prominent restaurants. 4 of the restaurants would be the highlight of the city from a dining perspective. But I would say they are probably on the top tier of independent restaurant field like the ones you experience in getaway cities. And then we have our own restaurant coming up, which is the Loft in Cairo.

Can you describe the features of the Le Reid hotel?

It’s a quite interesting property. The whole idea of Le Reid came in because previously the owner was a French woman. She always travelled to Morocco and lived there for a number of years. When she came back she looked at the architectural feel of the Cairo Fatimid Moez street and she decided to turn this into the Le Reid with 17 suite. Each suite has a story behind it – be it the story of one of the most famous Arabic singers like Oum Khalsoum, Naguib Mahfouz or King Farouk. Each individual suite has its own personality, its own story, including the area of the lobby and the lounge. It also has a little bit of influence from the Cairo Fatimid era too. So it complements the surroundings or the environment where the property is. But at the same time it’s a very unique property for Cairo for sure from a boutique perspective.

Apart from the opening in Kenya is there any particular country where you have established yourself?

We have done some research. We want to obviously expand from what we do. We want to concentrate on the Gulf States and we believe that Africa is the next big thing. A classical example for that is that Marriott most recently acquired 110 Pretoria properties based out of South Africa. Marriott is going through a rebranding right now with that. That tells you that there is a potential from that part of the continent, East Africa. Africa is known to have some of the most stunning lodges in the Serengeti game reserves around the world. You can see them on the top 10 of the Condé Nast Traveler magazines or Travel & Leisure. So from what we do and having those individual personality properties, I think there is a great potential for us to expand and grow in that market. Gulf State is saturated. It has more of high-rise buildings with 400 to 500 rooms. But Oman is another interesting destination also because you see Six Senses properties, which are something similar to what we do.

While doing business in Egypt what would you identify as the key challenges? What difficulties do you have to face? Apart from the insecurity, what is lacking?

There is a will, a desire that is just the idea of empowerment, individual development and confidence in people is important and it is not there yet.

Where would you like to see OB Hotels & Restaurants in say two to three years from now?

I don’t want to grow big. We are a small company and we want to continue that value of being a boutique hotel company. So where we would like to grow is possibly in our business plan. In our vision board, we would like to have at least 5 boutique hotel properties, up to 7 or 8 restaurants.

As you said you have travelled around the world and been manager in different places. What makes Egypt unique? What does it have to offer?

Egypt is unique. Obviously there is a lot of history. We don’t have to always associate it to the ancient Egyptian history, because the country also has a great culture. There is the Ottoman dynasty, there is the Fatimid and there is a lot of history over here. Culturally, Egypt is the hub or the soul of the Orient and the Middle East with respects to the Arts or music, literature and so on. So, this country has a lot to offer. It’s a very promising place. Other than that, it’s such a soulful country. It has some of the most stunning beaches obviously on the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. So, it does have a lot to offer.

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