Dubai: Deepak Ohri has a deprecating and disarming manner when you talk to him for the first time. It's not the typically formal personality one would expect from the Chief Executive Officer of Lebua Hotels and Resorts, a chain of luxury facilities leading five-star sector in Thailand and New Zealand.
But he's also an accomplished public speaker and a lecturer at business schools and trade seminars, who passes on his extensive knowledge and management experience in an area of the tourism market that's thriving, despite a global downturn and economic challenges.
He visited Dubai last week to talk up the Lebua brand and to reiterate that all is indeed well in Bangkok after government forces there squashed Red Shirt political demonstrators in May. He is also a member of the World Travel and tourism Council and has lectured at the Harvard and Kellogg Schools of Business Studies.
Uncharted territory
"I am the first person in my whole family to get in to the tourism business and I'm the only member of my family who's not intelligent and not studious," Ohri says, talking down his more than two decades in the business. "The only school I could get into was the school of hard knocks."
But he's clearly a master of that school.
The 42-year-old New Delhiite says that once he got into the hotel industry 25 years ago, he has never looked back.
But he has made mistakes the biggest, as far as he is concerned, is changing jobs at the start of his career, in order to find the right one. "There is no such thing as the right job," Ohri says. "You have to make yourself adjust to any situation. That is the only way you will ever find a right job."
So what makes him different to other top hotel CEOs? "I bring behavioural science and emotional touch studies to our properties," Ohri says without skipping a beat. Isn't that new-age mumbo jumbo?
No. As far as he's concerned, other large multinational chains can not attain the same satisfaction levels as those attained by his customers because those chains look at guests, not as visitors in need of an emotional experience and seeking an attachment, but rather as numbers through the door.
"At Lebua properties, we do go above and beyond to try and make an emotional connection with our guests," Ohri says. In essence, he says the secret is putting each individual customer first on every occasion, winning their loyalty and ensuring that they are emotionally satisfied and emotionally attached to properties, ensuring guests return again and again.
He cites numerous examples of his company going above and beyond to make sure guests are content, and his managers are empowered to make decisions which effect the emotional satisfaction of the guests.
"At other hotels, if you have a complaint, there are procedures to follow and rules and practices that must be adhered to," Ohri says. "All of this can affect the way you feel about a property. Once a negative impression is formed, it is virtually impossible to overcome that. Where we are different is that we make every effort to ensure guests are satisfied initially, and then at every stage during their stay. And we will do anything to ensure that is so."
