MUSCAT: There’s no doubt the hospitality industry across the globe and in Oman has taken a beating from the coronavirus pandemic. The combination of travel bans, lockdown orders and several other restrictions has led to an economic damage to the sector over the last 18 months. 

In an exclusive interview with The Arabian Stories, Panos Panagis, the General Manager of Hormuz Grand Muscat, and District Director of Radisson Hotel Group, Oman says the hospitality sector in the country would soon bounce back. 

Panos took over the 231-room five-star luxury Hormuz Grand Muscat hotel in 2017, after managing the Group’s Radisson Blu Hotel in Bahrain for six years. He has over 30 years’ experience of multi-cultural environments from his previous assignments in Switzerland, United Kingdom, Germany, and Nigeria, where he managed one of Africa’s largest hotels and convention centre and opened several new hotels.

Currently the group has 5 hotels in operation in Oman, with two more scheduled to open soon. 

Since his arrival in Oman, Panos led his team to secure several awards for the Radisson Hotel Group’s hotels, including the awards for the “Luxury Hotel in Oman” by World Luxury Hotel Awards in 2017.

A Swiss citizen of Greek origin, Panos’s primary focus is to deliver a personalized and engaging luxury experience by combining Oman’s local culture’s distinctive character with his international experience. 

Excerpts from the interview: 

The hospitality industry has been one of the most adversely affected by the coronavirus health crisis. How do you see the industry sailing through this crisis?

COVID-19 came unexpectedly and has wreaked havoc around the world and as we all know most of the activities have come to a halt. There has been a drop of 90-95% drop in travel and transport industry all over the world. It was a shock to the system and we were facing a lot of challenges initially. But then we sat down and discussed how we can manage through the crisis. Like I said, I don’t think anybody predicted the crisis to prolong this far. What we thought was this would end in three to six months but its almost 19 months and sadly we are still fighting the virus. Fortunately, all our hotels in Oman are open and we have customised it in such a way that the business is not badly affected. It is undoubtedly the most challenging time and now we have reached a point where we have to adjust the way we do business and most importantly we need to keep updated ourselves on how we can survive. At Radisson Hotel, we have realised about the importance of safety. We have introduced safety measures for our guests and staffs. We went into an association with the World Health Organisation and we chose a company called SGS to create a standard that we could follow for all our hotels across the world. We went into the smallest details of safety such as: when someone sits somewhere and touches a chair, how do you deal with that. How do you deal with people entering the property , how do you deal with staff entering the property and so forth.

What challenges and opportunities do you foresee in 2021 in a Post Covid world?

Domestic tourism has quite significantly improved here in Oman and people within the country can travel fairly easily and they can stay in hotels to break their routine and enjoy some experiences beyond the normal way. So this is a market we have greatly focused over the last six to eight months and we foresee that continuing well until the end of 2021. I think as the restrictions are lifted in the next three or four months, the demand will start especially from the GCC region. Once the UAE borders are opened, it will become an important market for Oman, we we will see more tourists flocking into the country. I hope, activities will return to normal in 2022. Next year is certainly going to be challenging, but let us be optimistic. The Ministry of Health has intensified vaccination. Currently, we are at nearly 50 per cent of the population being vaccinated with at least one dose. I am also cautiously watching what is happening around the world. We are still seeing an increase in cases in some countries where 90 per cent of the population are vaccinated. The good thing of course is that, vaccination will help in reducing hospitalised cases and slowly people will start gaining the confidence to travel. 

Oman is no exception to the crisis especially in the hospitality industry. What were the measures you took to battle this crisis? Looking ahead, how do you see the growth? 

We are constantly updated about the safety and health requirements and as I said earlier, we have implemented very strict policies on how we sanitise the rooms, all areas in the  hotel inorder to keep our guests safe. Making our guests comfortable in these difficult times is our priority. In that aspect, we constantly do Covid-19 test for our staff. We now have about 80% of our staff vaccinated with at least one dose and I hope within the next month we will reach at least 90 % of staff vaccinated with two doses. So, on the safety side we have taken all the precautions  possible  to ensure that we look after ourselves and our guests.  But as a business we need to try and identify what source of income you can have in this difficult times. The decision we have taken back in March 2020 to remain open was quite successful because all five hotels continue to operate considering the circumstances and I think that is a great achievement. 

Many people are still afraid to use the hotels due to the fear of Covid-19. What’s your advice to them?

I say vaccinate…vaccinate…vaccinate. We would like to see at least 75% of Oman’s population being vaccinated. I think that is where we are going to reach a level of herd immunity and therefore the cases will start dropping significantly and we can soon see our healthcare system treating normal patients. My humble advice to the guests is check the Covid protocols in a hotel before you book. You need to ask the hotels the relevant questions to find out how serious they are about maintaining safety protocols. When it comes to us, we make sure the guest know about the Covid safety. 

What is Hormuz Grand Muscat offering for the residents and locals, is there any F&B & leisure offers?

For the last few months, we have been offering leisure packages for people to stay in the hotel. We are just about to launch a new package where you book a room for OMR 60 + tax, where you will get OMR 50 as voucher which you spend in any of the restaurants and you can stay overnight enjoying the facilities of the hotel. We are also implementing the new theme offerings where we have steak nights, Sushi, and Sea Food to make it more exciting and interesting for people to eat outside and have a more normal life.  

Based on your extensive experience in the industry, what advice would you give to a hotelier managing their business through the crisis?

This is an unprecedented crisis the world is witnessing at the moment but it was relatively similar to then other crisis that happened in the past. In 2004- 2005, we had the SARS virus  in some regions of the world which was also a very worrying situation. I think these things will pass. Managers are strong and they are able to face the storm and take measures to survive and that includes anything from protecting the guest, the staff, taking the right commercial activities to safeguard the costs. Reducing the expense as much as possible and at the same time continue offering something which is exciting and interesting for the guests to experience.