Henri Kennedie

CEO & President
Swiss International Hotels & Resorts

Henri Kennedie served as President & CEO of the Golden Tulip Hospitality Group, where he dedicated more than 25 years to the development and expansion of the Golden Tulip brands and sold it to Starwood Capital in 2009. Prior to Golden Tulip, Henri Kennedie worked with Crest Hotels and Steigenberger Hotels in the Netherlands. He had his education at The Hague Hotel school, where he obtained a Bachelor’s in Hotel Administration.

Check out the incredible speaker line-up to see who will be joining Henri.

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Conference Day One: Monday, 22 January 2018

Monday, January 22nd, 2018

10:00 AM Choosing the right brand partner for your hotel project

Successful completion of your hotel project depends on on-going collaboration between many different stakeholders: developers, consultants, architects, designers, contractors and suppliers.

The right partners will help you reach your goals efficiently, on time and within budget. However, choosing the best team is becoming even more challenging. This presentation will highlight the most important criteria when choosing the project partner and explain how to make sure that suppliers are reliable.

11:30 AM PANEL DISCUSSION: Enhancing the competitiveness of hotels and resorts and envisioning the future of the regional economy

The Middle East holds one of the largest hotel development pipelines in the world with more than 300 hotels in the construction phase. Therefore, competition across the region is extremely high and hotel owners and operators have to continuously upgrade their infrastructure to increase their market share and stay competitive.

In this session, leading hoteliers will discuss what their plans are to ensure the future competitiveness of their hotels.

This session will address:

Key driving factors behind the impressive pipeline of hotels coming up in the Middle East
Life after Expo 2020: Future plans to ensure the continued prominence of the hospitality industry after the expo is over
Strategies to cope with the supply and demand challenges and maintaining high Average Daily Rates given the rising competitiveness