Pascal Duchauffour

Still only 36 years old, Mr. Duchauffour has moved around the world with the Ritz-Carlton group, and after San Francisco spent periods in Korea, Shanghai and Singapore, before his latest appointment four months ago.

Installing a new brand, especially one as strong and well-known as the celebrated philosophy of Cesar Ritz, the original King of Hoteliers, is no easy task. But Mr. Duchauffour says he is delighted to report that regular guests at the Bahrain hotel have noticed the difference.

'I came to the hotel last year before deciding to take up the appointment and noticed that all the employees seemed sad,' he says. 'That is not the Ritz-Carlton approach. The first thing we did in Bahrain was to bring in a team from around the world to help the employees understand our philosophy.

'So far we have not changed the physical product. We have started with our Ladies and Gentlemen serving Ladies and Gentlemen philosophy, and I sit with them for lunch everyday so that I know all about what is happening in the hotel. Guests who have been coming here for years say something has changed'.

So far the hotel is physically untouched except for necessary changes to stationary and accessories. But this is also about to change. The hotel will soon boast 22 private three-bed villas, each with private swimming pool. There will also be serviced apartments.

Indeed over the course of the next two years the entire hotel will be refurbished from top to bottom. Bathrooms will be ripped out and replaced. New restaurant concepts will be introduced. And 20 of the hotels 264 rooms will be lost to make larger suites.

'In the Iraq War we saw three full weeks of low activity, but there has been a pick-up in April, mainly clients from Saudi Arabia at the weekend,' says Mr. Duchauffour. 'Now occupancy is getting stronger week by week, and is 60-70% on weekdays.

'I think June will be strong for us as the SARS crisis is affecting travel to Asia, and the staff who had to leave for contingency reasons during the Iraq War are coming back'.

Overall, it looks as though the Ritz-Carlton Bahrain is setting the highest standards for hospitality in the kingdom and will be doing even better in the future. But if you decide to visit be nice to the bell-boy, he could be running the hotel in a few years' time.