People–in–Travel Tracking Travel’s Leaders Retro Regent knew what was going on. The new owners of Regent Hotels From Travel Business Analyst Ohletz, 48, is German, although have named Robert Burns as hon- most of his career has been outside orary chairman and Ralf Ohletz as the country. He may live up to the president. Tokyo, but Japan’s image is fading. Regent task, although to date he has In May’s PinT, we said new own- Regent is already operating a been a competent No2. We suspect er Steven Pan - chairman of Formosa good standard hotel in Beijing - with that Pan will be the person who International Hotels and now also of those admittedly high Regent stand- leads the company, and its direction Regent - had made his first mistake ards. So that leaves Shanghai. Again, will be decided by him. Burns and when he said Regent’s operating that city that has good hotels, so cre- Ohletz may not have much influence team would come from Formosa’s ating an SF would be hard. over that, although this remains to franchised Regent hotel in Taipei. Then there are those two men - be seen. Fortunately, we added that our fi- Burns and Ohletz. Despite his age nal comment would wait until Pan (85), Burns is still capable, but it is Briefs named the executives. likely that Pan, only 45, wants Burns • Isadore Sharp, founder, chairman, Now he has done so, we can for the image and message, and not and still CEO of Four Seasons Ho- praise his choice - although we now so much his skills. tels, has given up his CEO role. Tak- wonder why he said the team would Pan also overstates Ohletz’s ex- ing it is Kathleen Taylor, 52, who has come from the Taipei Regent... been with FS for 21 years. She But there is more. Pan over- became president and COO in states (and sometimes mis- Steven Pan 2007, in a slight change of roles states) the concept, quality, when Wolf Hengst retired as and standing of the Taipei Re- president. gent. But this is unimportant More scheduled for next if he understands the essential month’s PinT. message of Regent. Yes, the quality concept of • White elephant gets new the Regent group was launched mahout. by Burns, but it was a dynamic Canada’s Asian Coast De- team with him, Adrian Zecha, velopment, which plans a Las and Georg Rafael. And Rudy Vegas-style casino resort in Greiner, the first general man- south Vietnam, has appointed ager of the Hong Kong Regent Lloyd Nathan as CEO. Nathan (and, for less than a year, pres- has been president of an MGM ident of the Regent group). company, MGM Mirage Global The other factor was their crea- perience, linking him constantly to Gaming Development in Las Vegas; tion, the Hong Kong Regent hotel, Adrian Zecha (through Zecha’s link he joined MGMM only in 2002, and now the InterContinental. It was with GHM, where Ohletz worked has held three jobs in three MGM built as the group’s flagship, and it as EVP), although Ohletz also has a companies in London, Hong Kong, was a spectacular flagship (SF). strong link with other groups such as and Las Vegas. The MGM company To rebuild Regent, Pan also needs Mandarin Oriental. At GHM, he re- is a partner in the Vietnam develop- an SF. Too difficult in Hong Kong - ported to Hans Jenni, who has been ment. because there are now many spec- there since the start. Or No3, count- We believe that despite the tacular hotels there. Pan says he ing Zecha’s chairman’s role (though MGMM link, there will be opera- wants to bring Regent back to Asia. at arm’s length) at GHM. tional difficulties with the resort de- So although that appears to mean Pan also notes Ohletz’s involve- velopment. And even if it is built on the SF should be in Asia, we think ment in Beaufort Hotels, another time (it is due in 2013), there is not a non-Asian capital would be better. group associated with Zecha. But the market support that there is for And in one of just four cities - alpha- Beaufort was founded by Siegfried other developments in the region, betically, Berlin, London, New York, Beil, and the corporate twists be- such as in Macau and Singapore. Paris. If Asia, the only ‘world capi- tween Beaufort, Zecha, and others, Will the so-called Ho Tram Strip tal’ that would be suitable is Beijing are probably something that Ohletz with its MGM Grand Ho Tram become a white elephant? or Shanghai. In the past it would be might prefer to keep quiet - if he An annual subscription to People-in-Travel, costing €100, is delivered only via email in PDF format. A small extract from PinT may be included in the Asia Pacific and Europe editions of Travel Business Analyst. ISSN-1998-6882. For more information, contact Raymonde Perpignani at Travel Business Analyst, [email protected] Editors: Murray Bailey, Steve Shellum. Design: Context Design & Publishing. Copyright © Travel Business Analyst Ltd, 2010. www.travelbusinessanalyst.com AUGUST 2010.