“It was really a help knowing the hotel and destination – and the visionary boss – before opening,” recalled Fabien Gastinel, general manager of the 84-key The Oberoi, Marrakech, Morocco.
In 2015, Gastinel was due to relocate from Oberoi Dubai, where he had been F&B manager for two years, to be opening hotel manager of the Marrakech property. The project was delayed, so he went first to Ritz-Carlton Millenia, Singapore, and then to Waldorf Astoria hotels, first in Beijing, and then Cairo. In January 2019, he was contacted by Oberoi’s legendary Chairman, P.R.S. (Biki) Oberoi and asked to return to Marrakech as the property was finally due to open.
“The hotel is 50% owned by Aluminium de Maroc and 50% by Mr. Oberoi, who has taken an intense interest in it from the start,” Gastinel said. “He first interviewed me in 2013 and then, when I returned in 2019, he was involved in every tiny thing. Our chef still has to run every menu item past him.”
Gastinel picked up his own attention to detail from his boss. One of his first challenges when returning to Marrakech May 2019 was to hire line staff for his 240-strong team. “With the help of colleagues from sister Oberoi properties in Dubai and Mauritius, as well as in India, we did 2,500 live interviews in four weeks,” he said. “I personally saw over 1,000 keen applicants. We did not want people with hotel experience. We did want an amazing passion to connect.”
The result is a team that is 98% Moroccan, 42% female, average age 26. All customer-facing people have passable-plus English and an attention to personal grooming. Blessed with the natural hospitality encountered in villages all around the hotel, Oberoi provides no lodging, but everyone gets free transport and food.
“Line staff started September 2019, and we quickly moved from classroom, with introductions to luxury hospitality and Oberoi, through to role-playing,” Gastinel added. “Only four did not finish pre-opening and since then turnover has been 8%.”
The hotel opened December 1, 2019. Until closing on March 14, 2020, for the pandemic, it built up a customer base that was 80% international, led by the UK, followed by France and Germany. Average stay of 3.2 nights has, since re-opening October 23, 2020, temporarily dropped to 2.3 nights as a stronger domestic market is almost entirely drive-to.
Back in his native Marseille, France, Gastinel was destined for a medical career, like his father. “When I left high school, at 18, however, I had a temporary job at Le Pinède in St Tropez,” Gastinel recalled. “The owner, Jean-Claude Delion, was standing in for the GM and I was so impressed by his passion, which included spending so much of every day in the lobby talking to guests, that I changed tack and went to SHG Marseille International Hospitality & Business School.”