InnFocus Fall 2021

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NAMES IN THE NEWS by Deb Froehlick New Members The BC Hotel Association is proud to welcome these new members: Associate members: Salt Spring Coffee Bliss Hospitality Talent and Education Design Uniforms (PORTEX DESIGN) Braidwood Hospitality Canadian Institute of Blended Learning Signals Design Tourism Fernie Blackwood Apparel Hotel members: Crown Isle Resort & Golf Community Hotel Zed - Tofino Key-oh Lodge Queen Charlotte Lodge Strathcona Park Lodge Tweedsmuir Hotel Congratulations Congratulations to the following 2021 Greater Victoria Business Awards Winners: Community Builder – Accent Inns Inc. Outstanding Workplace – Brentwood Bay Resort Fairmont Hotels & Resorts has been recognized as the 2021 most trusted hotel brand in Canada. The results of the seventh annual Gustavson Brand Trust Index were presented by the Peter B. Gustavson School of Business at the University of Victoria. Coast Hotels is excited to announce that 27 properties within its portfolio have been honoured with Tripadvisor Travelers’ Choice awards. “Being recognized as fulfilling guests’ expectations is an indication of trust in our people and our brand,” remarked Kelli Steer, Coast Hotels Vice President Hotel Operations. “This year more than ever, our properties have had to adapt to put the safety and wellbeing of our guests and Ambassadors ahead of all else. We’re so grateful that the warmth and dedication of our Ambassadors still came across to our guests, from behind the mask.” Destination Canada is pleased to announce that their team in France was named International Tourism Office of the year at the Travel d’Or awards ceremony, which celebrates France’s best travel brands. Over 4,000 people nominated their favourite foreign tourism offices with the top five including Spain, Portugal, Mauritius, Ireland, and Canada. 15 industry experts evaluated the nominated offices and recognized Destination Canada as the winner. Appointments The BC Chamber of Commerce is pleased to welcome Vivek Sharma, CEO of Fairmont Hot Springs to the 2021-22 Board of Directors. Sharma also sits on the Board of Directors at the BC Hotel Association. Dan McGowan was appointed as General Manager of The Fairmont Empress in Victoria. He joins The Fairmont Empress team following his most recent role as the General Manager of Fairmont San Jose Dan McGowan and brings over 25 years of experience working within the Fairmont Hotels & Resorts brand. The BC Hotel Association’s very own Executive Committee Director, David MacKenzie, has been elected to the go2HR Board of Directors. In addition to his board tenure with both the BCHA and David MacKenzie Tourism Industry Association of BC, David will play an integral role in supporting the tourism and hospitality sector through his work with go2HR. TOTA is delighted to share that Ellen Walker-Matthews has been appointed President and CEO. Walker-Matthews has more than 40 years of experience in the hospitality, travel, and tourism industry. She has spent the last 11 with TOTA in various capacities and has been the Acting President and CEO of the organization for the past six months. Over her illustrious career, Walker-Matthews has spearheaded and played a significant role in key initiatives including Biosphere Certification, Green- Step Certification, and Green Destination Top 100; overseeing the Tourism Resiliency Program; development and implementation of regional tourism strategies; and sales, marketing, and business plans. The Board of Directors of Tourism Prince George announced Colin Carson as their new CEO. Colin has been with Tourism Prince George for four years in a variety of positions Colin Carson in marketing, visitor services, and sport tourism. Hailing from Prince George, Carson has the background, insights, and local contacts that will see him flourish in the role. Mandy Farmer, Accent Inns and Hotel Zed President & CEO has been elected to the Hotel Association of Canada Board of Directors. There, she will use her voice, immeasurable talent, and unwavering resolve to support industry and champion the hotel sector. Mandy Farmer New Hotels Versante Hotel, Greater Vancouver’s newest luxury boutique hotel opened on July 29. Locally owned and operated, it is Greater Vancouver’s first new luxury boutique hotel in years, and the first hotel of its kind in the city of Richmond. The property boasts leading-edge technology, 100 guestrooms and suites with bold décor themes, expansive mountain and river views, a 24-hour fitness centre, an array of exciting new dining options, 5,500 square feet of function space, and pet friendly accommodation options. 26 InnFocus
Overturning Orthodoxies: How Hotel CEOs Can Accelerate Diversity by Alex Mirza As a double immigrant raised in Toronto, having spent a decade in New York and eventually starting a lifestyle hotel brand in Shanghai, I enjoyed the benefit of living in and working among the most diverse and multicultural places on earth. I have also worked for diversity award-winning corporations such as Deloitte, Accenture, and Hilton to name a few. Research confirms that discrimination is best understood, not by classroom lectures or corporate training, but by those who have experienced it firsthand. In 2007, when I was SVP of Corporate Development at Hilton, I was presenting to the Board of Directors at a Waldorf Astoria resort in Phoenix. After a very thorough question and answer period that followed my presentation, I undid my tie and walked to the valet to retrieve my car rental. The valet crew was out retrieving vehicles, so I waited politely alongside a few other hotel guests at this iconic resort. In a span of a few minutes, not one but three white men handed me the car keys to their vintage sports cars, mistaking me for the valet. I passed the keys over to the actual valet who quipped, “This is one of the few places where they trust brown people.” It turns out all three were CEOs of real estate and finance companies and were frequent guests at the resort. While the implicit bias of this experience was demoralizing, it pales in comparison to the explicit barriers that women and ethnic minorities face in reaching the senior ranks of hospitality industry. Given the lack of diversity at the top of hotel companies, it is even more important for executives to get off the beaten path. When I became CEO of Cachet Hotels in Shanghai in 2012, I championed increasing diversity and made it one of my top three objectives as CEO. In many Asian markets, hotel owners strongly associate prestigious international hotel brands with the tall handsome European men who usually manage them. Despite this association, in 2012, Cachet Hotels set a bold goal of 50% female and minority general managers at our hotels and restaurants. At the time, women comprised 70% of the hotel workforce in China, but only 5% of full-service hotel general managers. In Canada, only 14% are women and 11% are minorities at the executive level. Cachet Hotels’ diversity initiative grew from a top-down purpose that I articulated at our first Chinese press conference in Shanghai to being a widely adopted practice that was embraced by hotel operators whose entire work experience was working for European men in mainland China. Five years later, we met our objective across our entire portfolio of hotels and restaurants in China, the rest of Asia and the Americas. We were also pleased that a few years later, in 2015, Accor announced a goal of 35% women hotel general managers in the Asia-Pacific region. A few years ago, I partnered with hotel industry veterans, data scientists, and technologists to build Mogul Recruiter, an elite talent marketplace whose mission is to perfect meritocracy and accelerate diversity. We found that though women and minorities make up 60% and 29% of the hotel front-line in Canada, only 14% are women and 11% are minorities at the executive level. Even worse, less than 1% of Canadian corporate leaders are Black. Over the past few years, we have developed algorithms to rank diverse pools of talent and predict their worth and annual compensation. Today, our talent database has over 500,000 elite global hospitality leaders in supervisor roles and above featuring over 50% women and 33% who identify as minorities. However, our work is just getting started. Through these leadership experiences and “swimming in the data,” I learned a thing or two about sourcing and developing diverse talent in the hospitality industry. Today, the hotel industry’s consolidation has made the executive ranks a small world. Many of my former corporate colleagues, owners, and business partners are now CEOs of major hotel brands and real estate groups. Most are quite sophisticated, care deeply about building winning cultures, and have established clear metrics that define winning in real estate, property operations, and online distribution. But prior to 2020, few have set diversity as one of their top management priorities. Many have remained silent despite their good intentions and continue to invest large sums of money marketing their brands as champions of diversity on social media platforms. The hotel industry remains extremely conservative with few outsider CEOs. Being in the same industry and company for a long period of time can ingrain even the most exceptional business leaders with orthodoxies or deeply held beliefs about “how we do business in this industry.” These widely adopted orthodoxies are perpetuated by the investment community, media, academics, industry associations, and universities. Not all orthodoxies are toxic, but the ones that are create massive blind spots which ultimately become driving lanes for disruption. Hotel CEOs can start by identifying the toxic orthodoxies that must be challenged to accelerate diversity and then brainstorm what opportunities could be made possible if they are overturned. To start the process, the following are five industry orthodoxies regarding diversity in the hotel industry: InnFocus 27
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InnFocus Fall 2021

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