Paul Jones, CEO of the Naide Group, recently branded as LUX* Island Resorts, must have one of the busiest time tables. Yet, that is not the impression you get as he welcomes you at the door and walks you back to the car, after an interview where he answers each and every question, shying away from none. We asked about the present state of the local tourism industry as well as its future prospects in the uncertain economic situation faced by the western countries.

Following the M6 Enquête Exclusive on Mauritius, which you must have watched like the rest of us, there were a lot of reactions. What is your reaction as an hotelier?

Well, there’s a long standing tenet that any publicity is good publicity. If it succeeded in getting the name of Mauritius out there, it certainly did the job. Naturally, one doesn’t like to see the negative aspects of the country or life in the country being portrayed in such a sensationalist manner but if you’re in a European country that’s something you see every day because there’s a demand for sensationalism. In fact, I don’t think it was such a big deal. It didn’t really tell us anything that we didn’t already know.

But did it tell the French public anything it didn’t know?

I don’t think so. Whether it’s drugs or crime or counterfeiting, that’s everywhere. I’m not condoning it but that’s the law of supply and demand. I don’t believe that French people will be put off visiting Mauritius as a result of this programme. We must, however, be very careful about the image we portray in the various market places.

Do you think that the fact that we are paying foreign workers Rs 40 an hour is going to hurt our image at a time when there is a move towards ethical tourism?

Well, I think people do know that there are low paid workers. It could have been a lot worse. There are programmes about sexual tourism in different countries. At least that is not the case for Mauritius. And we were spared that.

But the timing was bad, wasn’t it? We were just beginning to recover from the Michaela Harte episode. Has the tourism industry recovered from that?

The Michaela Harte episode as you termed it was tragic for everybody involved. My heart goes out to the family every day. So I personally find it hard to recover and I know it’s the same for everybody working at the property. But it did happen and it saddens me that it happened on my watch.

How much harm do you think it caused to the country and tourism in general?

There’s no doubt in my mind that the industry and country suffered at the time. That’s to be expected when something so tragic and unthinkable happens. Can I say to you that that’s gone away? Time is a great healer though nothing can heal those wounds for the family. At the national level, though the tragedy cannot be washed away, we do need to move on.

Has the industry done its mea culpa? I mean that the secrecy around crime in the big hotels breeds more crimes, doesn’t it?

Well, I can only speak for the company that I work for: we have no hesitation in bringing people who contravene the law to justice knowing full well that in spite of whatever measures we take to suppress that news, it invariably gets splashed all over the media and that’s negative for the company. That’s the flipside of going to the police and making an example. But notwithstanding that, we do without fail report all incidents to the police. We have also reviewed our policies with regard to security cameras, checkpoints and the way in which we maintain our security over key control points and throughout the property. Prevention is better than cure. So we do have measures that are consistent with international standards. Clearly we have to ensure that things like that will not reoccur.

Then there was the branding exercise. Was that a coincidence?

It had nothing to do with that. As a matter of fact, the rebranding exercise started in 2010, shortly after my taking office as CEO of the company.

Well, you can’t prevent some people from thinking that it was done to make the world forget the entire episode…

We rebranded the entire group. If we had simply changed the name of that hotel, one could be tempted to think that that was the reason. We didn’t do that we created a completely new brand concept and implemented it in all hotels and monolithically rebranded five hotels. The hotels did not have a concept. People need something to identify with, feel it and touch it. We’re not running hotels we’re running resorts. And, in these hard times, people save up and some of them even borrow to take a vacation.

Not the people who come to your resorts, surely?

(Laughs) You’d be surprised. They trust us with their time and we have to give them the best time. In fact the time of their lives!

Are you beginning to see the effects of this big branding exercise?

Rebranding is not a magic wand and we believe we shall see the effects in the medium to long term. Having said that, the effect on our people has been phenomenal. They have adhered to the concept and are so proud and committed to be part of LUX* Island Resorts. Rebranding should be anything but a marketing gimmick or a cosmetic exercise. We worked hard on the whole concept and took a great deal of care and time explaining our values. There are many more arguments to persuade new guests that we are not just a run of the mill resort. Let me give you an example, we have a phone box and our customers can make a phone call anywhere in the world for free. They can’t believe it! No resort has done that before. So I think that what we’re trying to say is: “ We know it’s tough in your country and in the world and we know that you have to save and sacrifice to make the trip, that it’s a long flight so we’ll make it even more worthwhile for you.” What we’re trying to do is make our extras and all-inclusive packages and just the whole experience that much more affordable and more sympathetic with the environment we are living in.

Talking about all-inclusive, one of the criticisms that you receive is that you keep the guests in the hotel and force feed them four times a day so the rest of the community derives little or no benefit.

I agree with you. I accept that our hotels have in the past tended to become a little like ghettoes. We’ve stopped that and today we look for opportunities to take people out to see the authenticity of the island. People don’t just want to lie on the beach, go in the sea and back to the hotel. That’s too artificial. On Saturday, I went with the minister of tourism and the Mauritius Tourism and Promotion Authority (MTPA) people around the religious sites of Port Louis and visited different temples, mosques, churches and pagodas… We saw a number of places and the wonder of it all is the richness and freedom of expression and religious belief and the willingness of the people involved to share their experience with us and, in future, with the tourists when they come to visit. That’s what is amazing. That’s a good example, and I think there is a lot more when you start digging deep. That’s what we have to encourage tourists to discover.

That’s very well, but where do the tourists you bring to Mauritius go out to discover the authenticity of the island, as you rightly called it, do they eat in restaurants and bouibouis outside the hotel or stick to the picnic lunch you packed for them before they left the hotel?

I’m not sure. I agree that they should experience more typical eating places. When I go to New York, I see the Chinese and the Japanese wandering around with their lists. We need to have similar lists for the best places to eat out there.

Who should do that? The MTPA?

Why not? I’m not sure. But while I am talking to you, I am thinking that maybe we’ll get going and do that ourselves. I mean why not? Maybe I’ll do my own personal favourites!

The other thing you will hear Mauritians complain about is that the hotels are closed to them. Is that the case?

No. Are the gates wide open for anyone to wander in? I guess the answer is no! If that’s what you’re asking. But I think essentially any Mauritian who wants to visit a hotel genuinely to stay or partake of a meal can do so. I don’t believe there is any hindrance to that taking place.

Aside from the price!

Maybe or maybe not. I was at Tamassa at the weekend and there were heaps of Mauritians there. I think the price is not too bad, the rates are good and people feel they are getting value for money. I think it’s all relative. Obviously the five star hotels are more expensive. It depends on what you want and what your budget is.

As the CEO of a huge hotel group, what is a day’s work to you?

My ideal day would be one when I am less in the office. I’d rather be out at the hotels. I am an hotelier more than anything else so that’s where I enjoy being most. I can’t stay away from the hotel, seeing what’s going on and how we can make the experience more interesting.

Are you a hands-on person?

(Hesitates) Yes. Obviously, I recognize that one has to give space to people and be careful of not micromanaging. I mean, why have good people if you’re going to micromanage? But obviously, I want to be in on the action. But it’s different for different people. Some areas of responsibility require more time and others less but clearly when one is rebuilding a group, building a brand and creating new standards, that requires a lot of presence and observation and I enjoy that. I try to respect the management in place and help, support and motivate them and monitor how the people are doing and how they are managing these tough times.

And what’s the outlook for tourism this year?

2011 was a tough time for this group and we did a lot on top of managing the business. I think that in the first half of 2011, I was getting the feeling that we would be able to see some sort of turn-around this year from a macro economic point of view. Obviously, that’s not going to take place with the euro zone crisis.

And that’s going to stay for a while?

That’s going to stay for a while. It’s difficult to predict what’s going to happen and I’m not going to pretend to be able to do so. But I do know that we are in crisis mode in the industry globally. I do know that we are more in crisis mode in Mauritius because we have such a huge number of rooms to fill and more rooms opening. And for every new hotel opening, there’s another plane required. The pie is only so big and everyone is trying to take a bigger piece of a same sized pie. All we are doing really is just spiralling downwards with the rate war and that will impact negatively the quality, which will affect the image of Mauritius.

You think we should stop building hotels?

I think we can go on building hotels as long as we have more air seats and we make sure that these are economically priced for both the carrier and the market. We are not there yet.

Who is to blame for that? Air Mauritius?

No, they are not the only ones responsible for that. We didn’t know a few years ago that the euro zone crisis would be here, how serious it would be and how weak the euro would become. None of that was predicted three or four years ago. Had it been, it would have forced us to take a different strategy regarding the opening up of the Asian market, which we in Mauritius have been hesitant in implementing. Others, like the Maldives, took the lead, particularly in the case of the Chinese market. They’ve opened up with amazing success. In 2011 they welcomed about 200,000 tourists from China, accounting for 21% of the total visitors to Maldives and a growth of 67% year on year. Yes, they have a proximity advantage but what really helped was their open air access policy.

Why isn’t Air Mauritius putting more seats out there then?

I think Air Mauritius is going through a whole restructuring exercise – what is their business model, what are the aircraft they own, what are the routes they have to do, and don’t have to do. What are the profitable routes and what routes support tourism, what routes support business… So they’ve gone through that whole exercise and now they have to say what the next step is. And the good thing is we are building a new airport! (Laughs)

Is that going to be a major consideration?

I think so. If the new runway can take the 380, I’m sure that one of the Middle Eastern carriers, Emirates would love to operate the 380 down here. But we need more of those big planes coming from Asia because we can’t simply rely on those north-south frequencies to fill all our hotel rooms.

Does that mean you are optimistic about our future?

I am an eternal optimist. I think Mauritius is a world-class tourist destination and as such will always have an enormous attraction for many tourists of different countries. Once we’ve sorted out our air access and got more balance between the seats and the rooms, we are home and dry. We obviously have to pay attention to making sure that we provide everything that any new market like China, Russia or India needs. We have to be ready. We don’t want to be amateurish. Sometimes I hear people criticising the tourists who come from those countries. That’s wrong. We have to be grateful to any tourist who comes to this island no matter what their origin is.

Are our prejudices a major barrier to attracting tourists from the emerging markets?

No, I think air access is. In a couple of weeks I’ll be travelling with the minister and members of the MTPA and the industry to India and China and we’ll be making some statements about our long-term commitment to those markets and listening to the industry in those two countries, about what they want and how we can build a permanent bridge and close fruitful cooperation for the long-term. Of course, air access is going to come up. Once you’ve convinced the tourists to come here, the next stage is: how do they get here?

TOURIA PRAYAG
(l’express Weekly)