Dean Schreiber, Hong Kong's hottest hotelier 26th Mar 2004 Back   Dean Schreiber is rapidly collecting accolades as his career shoots through Hong Kong’s universe faster than the speed of light. Previously the youngest GM in Hong Kong (opening the Century Harbour View Hotel at 34), and soon to be the only GM to have opened three hotels here, he hasn’t yet hit 40 and is still exploding with ideas. With an ability to straddle the corporate and personal sides of the industry and focus on the job at hand with an iron-clad self discipline, as well as charm the most hardened of corporates and guests with his crinkly smile and genuine desire to please, the Australian hotelier has propelled himself into the hottest seat in town - GM of the Le Meridien Cyberport hotel. It’s a tough job, but he’s just the guy to do it. Sitting outside in the garden podium of Cyberport 2, an oasis of grass and trees in the middle of four shiny buildings, Schreiber arrives looking relaxed and unruffled. Quite impressive for someone who is launching the latest in hi-tech hotels in less than 3 weeks. When asked how he is doing, however, he immediately puts his cards on the table for all to see. “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And after three hotels you’d have thought I’d have got it by now!” When he calls it a hard job, he is referring mainly to the hotel’s disadvantage in location. Situated out of Hong Kong’s CBD at the controversial Cyberport, Le Meridien have taken a risk in expecting guests to travel to experience their hospitality, however 21st century. Hong Kongers are renowned for their love of convenience, and in most cases swear that everything they need can be found in Central, while Hong Kong’s business visitors traditionally favour Central, Admiralty or Tsim Sha Tsui. There will have to be a shift in perspective. “It is a tough location,” Schreiber admits. “But you can do from here to town in eight minutes through the tunnel. Even if it takes 15, in Tokyo or Manila you’d be lucky if you moved at all in 15 minutes, and in Bangkok it takes longer than that to cross the road.” Instead of becoming bogged down in transportation logistics, the hotel’s able marketing and PR machine, with “Creating Buzz” girl Alka Alimchandani at the helm, has firmly set its feet in both camps and launched a two tiered marketing approach. The hotel is close to town, by speeding taxi, or far from the hustle and bustle with a calming sea-view, depending on which market they are trying to corner at the time. But not all Schreiber’s problems have been solved by this gymnastic approach. He also shoulders the responsibility of relaunching the Le Meridien brand. A long term absence in Hong Kong, Le Meridien’s local reputation is being constructed from scratch, but this too Schreiber has managed, with his deft magic wand, to turn to his advantage. A bottomless well of ideas, he is taking the nearly carte-blanche opportunity to create something different: in his words, “a really cool hotel.” “The hotel industry is fraught with tradition. Here, we are reinventing the wheel. Most hotels set parameters and guests must fit in. Here, you are the guest, so what do you want? Le Meridien has allowed us to be flexible and explore the limits and we’ve tried to adopt that. Hong Kong needs it. We could do the same as everyone else but then we’d get the same results as everyone else. We want better results.” Looking around at examples of hip hotels like the new sleek Metropolitan in Bangkok, The Standard in LA, the W Hotel, Sydney, it is true that Hong Kong doesn’t have a sexy hotel for “our generation” as Schreiber puts it. “This hotel is for our generation, not our parent’s. It’s for people looking for an edge.” Innovations unique to this hotel centre around technology, as you’d expect at Cyberport. The mobile check in allows guests to check in from their office or even in their taxi on the way to the hotel. “It’s wireless, seamless and the second time you visit you don’t even have to check in,” smiles Schreiber. He also emphasises the Art + Tech rooms, featuring stylishly sophisticated goodies like plasma screens, the latest wireless connectivity, glass power showers, etched glass headboards etc… Just as irresistible, although slightly less hi-tech, and a prime example of the kind of fun, quirky ideas Schreiber and his team are becoming known for, is the idea of a mobile martini man. Shaking and stirring the Cyberport community with the oh-so-chic cocktail, he’ll bring the bar to your desk. Businessmen sipping their cyber-tini as they tune in to the morning shift in the US could give trans-Atlantic conference calls a whole new dimension. Alcohol aside, this is clearly what Schreiber enjoys most about opening a hotel. He is a hands-on guy who delights in bringing fresh ideas in, wants to be involved at every step and every detail, and gets a kick from seeing them implemented. “I love it,” he says. “I love choosing the colours for the brochures; I want to know it all.” It is easy to get the impression that taking over an established property would be too limiting for this GM who is determined to push forward the boundaries of hospitality. He describes his hotel opening niche as a difficult job, citing the duality of his roles - pre-opening he’s involved in the project work of construction, design, procurement, then there’s the cross over phase where he is working at project work and at being an hotelier, and then he switches into top gear hotel mode - however, it is clear he thrives on the pressure. “It’s an adrenaline thing, getting the endorphins flowing, and then you can’t stop,” he smiles. “It is getting more insane now. In the early days we were working office hours. You think eighteen months is plenty of time. Now we are in mad panic mode, with three weeks to go.” Originally harbouring a more obviously adrenaline-fueled lifestyle, with serious plans in the past to be a pilot, Schreiber’s career took a new direction after his father escaped with his life from a plane crash. Freaked out, 17 year old Schreiber Jr. finally admitted to his father that he had changed his mind, and unperturbed, Schreiber Sr. suggested his son went into hotels. Just like that, walking along a beach in Thailand, a remarkable hospitality industry career was born. From then it was hotel school in Austria, followed by a return to his native Australia where he was fast-tracked into a supervisory role. Since then Schreiber has omitted to take his foot off the accelerator, and fast-tracked it through positions in Australia, the Philippines and Tibet to his first GM role opening the Century Harbour View Hotel in Hong Kong. “I always wanted to be a GM by 35,” he says, and without so much as a blink, “I did it at 34.” The speed and focus with which he has achieved everything is not without a few practical drawbacks. “When my wife and I go to a restaurant I have to sit facing the wall,” he smiles. “It’s an occupational hazard. You see someone trying to get the waiter’s attention and try to help… Even on holiday, and this sounds crass, but we have to stay at the best of the best, because otherwise the whole time I’m criticizing. I live, sleep, breathe hotels. It’s very hard to turn off.” Unlucky for Mrs. Schreiber, but lucky for Le Meridien. “Hotels like ours can break with tradition and be successful,” Schreiber insists. “Whoever is in front has time to explore something new again while everyone is catching up. There is potential for this industry to go in any direction, and it is cool to work with Meridien.” It’s impossible not to spend time with this man without coming away with your head fizzing with his ideas of “utopian hotels”, and believing that “yes, it is possible to please everyone all of the time.” He’s refreshingly down to earth but with, quite literally, a fantastic imagination and energy. The combination is intoxicating. Undoubtedly he will continue to open ground-breaking hotels all over the world, despite the odd suggestion that he harbours a desire to run some tiny resort tucked away in Thailand. “Each time I open a hotel I say I’ll never open one again. But there is a certain buzz about it. It’s such a rewarding experience. These things exist because I said so. Once I get over it, I know I will itch for another.“