GM interview: Janet Fitzner

Source:  www.hoteliermiddleeast.com

Radisson Blu Hotel, Dubai Deira Creek’s new general manager, Janet Fitzner, explains why she has already set a target of establishing the creekside property as Dubai’s preferred city hotel

Following your first two months in the city, what are your views on Dubai’s hotel industry?

I think the Dubai hotel market is very, very competitive of course — we have all the chains here, beautiful hotels, newest trends and fashion, and in terms of the F&B concepts, it’s amazing what we offer to the guest.

What I like very much is the service orientation here in Dubai, I think this is just amazing here.

This is especially so here in my hotel —I don’t have this level of friendliness when I go to another — but I think the service quality is of a good standard here in Dubai.

How would you like to see Radisson Blu Hotel, Dubai Deira Creek positioned in this market?

I want to be the preferred city hotel here, that’s of course our ambition. We are long established, although this doesn’t mean anything, but I think we have proven that we still deliver an excellent service, the product is very special with lots of facilities we offer to our guests — we have 16 outlets so the guest has lots of choice. And I know that I am not the only hotel here in Deira but I am always fascinated by the location. I love the beach but when I come to Deira I am overwhelmed. You have the history behind you and in front of you, as well as views of Burj Khalifa, so I think our location is a very big advantage as well.

You have made an active effort to be a very visible GM in your hotel; why is that important to you?

I think that is one of the roles of a hotelier that I like. That’s why I like to be in operations — the possibility to meet the guests and talk to them — that is how you get new ideas. The guests give comments about what they like and don’t like — they give good recommendations and that’s how you improve either your service or your product Plus, they know Dubai well.

I am a communicative person but the problem is you have to keep your time for this. If you are new somewhere you can’t be lost behind your desk; with so many employees, I have to focus on them. What I enjoy here is that everybody understands you because everybody speaks English — it used to be that in Poland I would have to take somebody with me to translate because I didn’t speak fluent Polish so not everybody could understand me. But here, with 53 nationalities I am impressed that everybody speaks such good English. We have to look after the employees because without the employees I am nothing. I am only a little one among 650 people. This is the basis of what we have, that is what we have to see.

The hotel is at full occupancy [March 16]; why is this and how do you plan to continue it?

Well it is high season now in Dubai I think. I came in December for a handover then I started in January. I think Dubai has such high occupancy levels, which is amazing, so the demand is here and the city is attractive for people.

I was at ITB and it was interesting for me to see I think a very professional promotion — Kids go Free from DTCM and Emirates — for the summer to help all the hotels to fill up the rooms and get people in to the city. It’s very nice as a family approach for hotels who are family oriented or who can host that — there are lots of GCC people here for the summer for shopping and spending times with kids. We have a lot of flights out of Europe, so it’s of course helping us, so I think this is a very nice promotion.

What are your priorities for business going forward?

First of all, I am just getting an overview of the hotel, so I only have two and a half months, which is not that much of a solid background to get into the details. I think this is a time for me to sit with my team and consolidate things, just review what strategies we have, how to develop this year and then we are thinking ahead to next year for the business planning process and we need to adapt to the market.

We have just done a survey again for conference and banqueting for example. So if you see that occupancy in conferences and banqueting has gone down, then of course we have to see why this is. So one of my focuses now is meetings and events, and a lot of our business is catering so you also need to look to this area. Rooms is running very well, we have the comparison figures from the benches and we also carefully watch this.

I have reviewed the marketing plan, we just revised it according to the budgets. You have to also look at your forecasts into the next three months and so as each month ends we review everything again.

You have joined the ranks of a handful of female GMs operating in Dubai; how does that feel?

You have to make a decision at a certain stage if you are a female because in order to be a GM in the hotel industry you have to be flexible and moveable and sometimes this doesn’t fit into your life. But I think there are also visible changes so that maybe in the future this will change and moving will not be requested as much anymore. Maybe in the future we will see this because of course the younger generation has different demands to my generation, and the hotel industry also adapts to the new demands of the younger generations.

But whether a man or a woman, we have to see that the hotel is delivering our results and we achieve this with good employee satisfaction and each woman or man has to work on how to achieve this — I think in the end whether a GM is a man or woman doesn’t matter.

ABOUT JANET FITZNER

German-born Janet Fitzner took a fairly bumpy path into the hotel industry, despite it always being her dream to work in hospitality.

After persuading her disapproving parents that she should go to hotel school, Fitzner undertook a three-year apprenticeship, but following an experience in a private hotel in Germany, she decided after two years that it was not for her. Instead, she signed up to study economics specialised in the tourism and travel industry, writing her final diploma about marketing and hotels.

Her aim was to work for a tour operator in hotel purchasing, but with tour operators keener to give her a job in accounting because of her economics qualification, Fitzner found herself back in hotels, starting her career in the marketing department for InterContinental Cologne in 1988.

She joined Rezidor in 1992 as director of sales and marketing at the Radisson SAS Hotel in Düsseldorf and since then took on roles as revenue manager and executive assistant manager.

Fitzner’s first GM role was at Radisson SAS Hotel in Hannover in 2000.

In 2003, Fitzner moved to Poland as GM of the Radisson SAS Hotel in Szczecin and was then appointed GM at the Radisson Blu Centrum Hotel, Warsaw in 2006. In mid-2007, she was promoted to district director of Poland, overseeing six hotels — her most recent position.