Video Interview with Hotel General Manager, Francisco Giles

We catch up with Mr.Francisco Giles, the hotel General Manager at the Renaissance Dubai Hotel, which is part of the Marriott family of hotels. Franciso is also the winner of “Hotel GM of the Year 2007″ award at the Hotelier Middle East Awards. Francisco tells us about his career path, his beliefs and shares some valuable insights into the role of great General Manager.

“God gave you two ears and one mouth which means that you have to listen twice as much as talk.” Invaluable Words of a true hospitality mentor… now stop talking and start listening! He believes in karma, regards his own mother to being his greatest mentor and believes that creating positive energy is the key to attracting opportunities! Having crossed paths with the likes of Sean Connery and Jackie Stewart learn from this hospitality Guru as to how he navigated his way to the top!

Francisco is a strong and active skier due to his time spent in a hotel school among the green mountains in Switzerland where he completed a… He claims that his ski marks tended to be better than his classroom marks however Young Hotelier finds that a little hard to believe! He completed his kitchen stage training at the onset of his career in the Ritz Hotel in London before moving to the Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Lane as a pageboy at the age of nineteen. Francisco’s potential was noticed in the early days and a couple of weeks after commencing he was invited onto the hotel Concierge Team. With his Swiss Hotel School Food & Beverage Diploma in hand, Francisco found this experience to be one of the greatest of all! He spent one a half years organizing people’s lives and more importantly their free time which reaped much satisfaction for our upcoming star!

“I think if you have a solid belief in who you are and enjoy doing what you do, then you create positive energy and opportunities will naturally come your way”. Francisco returned to a kitchen brigade in a smaller hotel in Surrey to avail of a management trainee in an opening property at the time. Again faced another exciting step along his path he joined Hyatt in Mexico on the Corporate Executive Programme for 12 months. Francisco sums this experience up in one word… “Amazing!” He found himself in a Sales & Marketing team after completing this training but felt his F&B journey had not fully run its course. Therefore Francisco approached the Head Office and was and offered much support in realigning his career path back to a Food & Beverage Role. He took flight once again having received a phenomenal opportunity to be a member of a Hyatt opening Team in Koonam, Australia. The lifestyle ‘Down Under’ as the saying goes was clearly was to the liking of Mr. Giles’s as he stayed there for some time traveling the Aussie Landscape while performing FIVE HOTEL OPENINGS with Radisson Hotels. From pigeon English to a form of eyebrow language in areas of wilderness these experiences undoubtedly enhanced Francisco’s communication and management skills!

So how and why Dubai?!
Francisco arrived to Dubai 14 years ago as second in command to the Ramada Hotel. Soon moved to a role as the Resident Manager at the Renaissance which as the time was the Royal Abjar Hotel and then returned as General Manager to the Ramada for 5 years. Supportive of the Marriott ways Francisco found his was back to the Renaissance as the General Manager and 7 years on has not looked back a day since!

In retrospect Francisco enjoyed his Management training with Hyatt because he believed it was well structured and afforded him the opportunity to travel. He is still astonished that the average length of service it takes to become a General Manager with Marriott is in fact 25 years, was did our Young Hotelier star Francisco Giles do differently that resulted in his success story of becoming a General Manager at the age of 31?!!

“If you work with one company all those years you only know one company and become very bias towards them. I moved a lot in my earlier career….to become an International General Manager, you are dealing with international people and your staff are international. The more countries and cultures you get under your belt, the more companies and philosophies you learn then you can take the good from all those different companies and make your own idea of what is a good practice, a good leadership and a good management principle”

A number one priority for Francisco is taking care of his people. He is a firm believer that when you take care of your people, they in turn take care of your customers and the customers will come back. This is not something that he learned discovered initially at Marriott but much earlier on in his career. However he is fortunate to now have tied up with a company that operates under the same principles and business ethics that he holds so close to heart: his number one priority is his people. “You have to be sensitive to their issues. When I say taking care I mean genuinely caring about their welfare, and their well being which converts to a success formula when linked to management style. I am an excellent communicator and I don’t leave anything to chance as I am a detail orientated person” Francisco believes that if he can clearly communicate his vision, set clear expectations in every single area in the hotel then his team are on their way to success! “It is an evolution process and if you can challenge it through creativity and innovation, then you create passion. That passion is positive energy that flows through 350 employees and you have effectively created 350 general managers,” he says.

In his final words Francisco shared with Young Hotelier his views on the enormous and rapid development that shall soon be upon us here in the Middles East. His pearls of advice were that undoubtedly we will need people and we will need good people! If we don’t take care of them, operate under fair business practices as a standard and deliver upon our promise then you are destined to lose that talent! Offering ridiculous increases to what hoteliers are currently being paid now is not the answer either according to Francisco! Watch this interview to learn why!?

Recently commended in the February Edition of Concierge Magazine as the “Quintessential Hospitality Professional- articulate, impeccably dressed and efficient”, Francisco Giles lives true and is deserving of every word and possibly more! Young Hotelier was honoured to get the opportunity to meet with this hospitality icon that represents all of the exceptional and unparalleled reasons to be in this business! Let’s hope his 18 month old son follows in his father’s footsteps in due course to become a true and remarkable industry leader!