Martin Fowler takes charge of Holiday Inn Sandton

If you were going to develop a new hotel or hospitality facility you’d look for a manager who was as much an astute business person as an experienced hotelier. That way, you’d know that your average room rates (ARR) and occupancy rates would keep growing.

And, in the hotelier part of this person, you’d prefer someone who lives his hotels rather than seeing them as a job. That way, you’d know that personal service really would be a practical reality in every guest experience.

You’d also want someone with the intellectual and operational deftness to be able to capture the expectations of residents of the global village and use them to push the facility to its absolute potential. That way, you’d have a unique but universally attractive facility to market.

So you’d need Martin Fowler, new general manager of the brand new Holiday Inn Sandton – the first of the new generation of Holiday Inns to be opened in South Africa since the original Holiday Inns were rebranded as Southern Sun hotels three years ago.

To add to all these ‘new-nesses’, there’s also a fresh Holiday Inn brand – which combines a more glamorous hotel experience with an enhanced promise of value for money.

The owners of the Holiday Inn Sandton, the Hospitality Property Fund (HPF), bought the hotel as part of a group vision aimed at providing investors with exposure to the hospitality sector via a full range of hotel and leisure properties. Having the strength of a global brand and being located in Africa’s prime business and retail destination, the Holiday Inn Sandton gives investors exposure at the top end of the sector.

HPF put Fowler in charge of fulfilling their vision for the hotel because, amongst other achievements, he has a track record of significantly boosting ARRs and occupancy rates. As general manager of the Ambassador Hotel & Executive Suites, for instance, he (was able to capitalize on the upturn in business from 2001 ensuring significant growth in excess of the market growth.

In his four years as co-owner and managing director of the Riviera International Hotel & Country Club, he grew occupancies by a steady 11% year on year and pushed ARR by 15% year on year.

While he was about it, he had the foresight to acquire the local Country Club and golf course from the municipality and incorporate it into the hotel’s facilities. But he was so busy living the hotel that he never once got a chance to play the course, eventually donating his clubs as a prize for a competition.

At the Ambassador, he oversaw the conversion of an averagely-performing restaurant into Salt Restaurant – one of Cape Town’s top five. The project was completed in just five months and was developed reflecting a saving in accordance to the budget.

Martin shares the passion in developing South African staff. He recruits staff for new facilities from outside the industry and then trains them intensively on the job. “The skills shortage in the industry is an opportunity to create employment and upgrade industry service levels at the same time, rather than poach from competitors. Also, it’s time we offer full support to Hotel trainees ensuring their development. We as mature management have a responsibility to develop these aspiring managers of the future.”

Fowler’s nine new waitrons for the new restaurant, 123 on Rivonia, which has been created on the 9th floor of the Holiday Inn were all previously unemployed before being recruited.

His enthusiasm for development also saw him being invited every year when he was based in Cape Town to serve as the industry representative on the Cape Town Hotel School’s interview board. And, during his four years as financial director of FEDHASA CAPE, he helped bring the organisation into the black and, consequently, make funds available for bursaries for people from previously disadvantaged backgrounds.

So, it seems as if all those years working as a kid in his grandad’s pub on the banks of the Humber River in England gave Martin Fowler an understanding of the hospitality industry from the inside out and the bottom up and sowed the first seeds of a passion for the industry.