The word that comes to mind when meeting Sandeep Walia for the first time is gentleman. Walking down the hall of Grosvenor House in Dubai to greet me, in a beautifully tailored suit, with an assured stride and a warm, welcoming smile, he exudes a kind of easy poise I have experienced only twice before: when I met Tom Ford and, years later, Bill Clinton.
That might sound like quite a heady comparison, but as my conversation with Walia progressed, it’s one that tracks. All three men possess that rare combination of old-school gentlemanly charm and quiet authority that both disarms and cultivates a sense of instant camaraderie – even with someone they have just met.
We end up ensconced inside Indego by Vineet, the hotel’s famed Indian restaurant, which has opened early to give us a quiet place to chat. There, over piping-hot tea, we discuss Walia’s decades-long career in hospitality and how the field is evolving as the tastes of world travellers continue to shift. And if anyone understands what globetrotters are looking for, it’s Walia. He is endlessly criss-crossing the planet, overseeing more than 410 open properties and over 200 projects across Europe, Middle East and Africa with a big focus on the luxury portfolio that includes some of the most prestigious names in the business – Bulgari, The Ritz-Carlton, St. Regis, W, and Edition among them. Since the start of this year, he has also taken on the global leadership of Design Hotels. He describes it, with a shrug, as having “three hats”.
Walia’s lifelong love of exploration and travel was formed at an early age. His father was in the Indian Air Force, which meant the family moved constantly, though never beyond the country’s borders. “But I think for me the treat used to be Sunday, when we would go to the officers’ mess,” he recalls. The whole base would gather for a festive night of revelry – an entire week’s anticipation compressed into one evening. “And imagine being on the other side of creating that fun for people. That’s how it really started,” he says of his desire to build a career around giving people experiences that would etch themselves into memories.
Initially, Walia dreamt of working in the front office as the best jumping-off point for his career. He saw it as the position with the most visibility, and therefore the fastest route to advancement. Instead, the general manager at his first hotel placed him in butler service, and the future chief operating officer thought his hospitality career had ended before it began.
It turned out to be the making of him. Among the formative moments: a stint as Michael Jackson’s butler during the singer’s stay at the hotel. Walia was so good at the job that the pop star invited him to be his guest at the concert he was playing in the city. “I think we judge too often,” reflects Walia of that first job, and of his belief that people should create their own opportunities, no matter where they find themselves. “You just need to always push yourself out of your comfort zone. Go above and beyond, and be open to change. I think that agility is required to work in this field, and being adaptable is something which has really, really helped me.”
That openness eventually took him out of India, to a role with Oberoi Hotels in Egypt. “When I moved to Egypt, I was totally breaking out of that comfort zone. It was my first time out of my own country and getting to really experience a different culture,” he says of his first international move. From there he spent more than five years as general manager of the Ritz-Carlton in Moscow, followed by a stint in Europe, then the Gulf. Walia still remembers with total clarity the transformative phone call telling him he had landed the general manager role in Russia. “I closed the door of my office and I said, ‘I’ve done it. I’ve achieved all I had to do in my life,’ ” he recalls with feeling. And there were other calls: vice president, chief operating officer, and this year the call about Design Hotels. “You remember these things because they make you feel rewarded and special,” he says. Which is precisely why he now relishes making these sorts of calls to other Marriott employees. “You’ll always remain a part of that person’s life.”
Ask him how luxury hospitality has evolved over his career and Walia points first to Covid, the ripple effects of which are still being felt across the industry. Most notable is the shift towards spending on experiences over luxury goods – forgoing a tangible luxury in favour of unforgettable moments that can be more emotionally sustaining. Walia believes it is a shift that is “going to stay forever”.
From that same impulse comes the growth in event travel, with people choosing a city specifically for a sporting event or a concert. Walia sees it becoming a major business driver, and it is what prompted Marriott Bonvoy’s partnerships with Taylor Swift and FIFA. Then there are branded residences, which began as an American idea and have found their truest expression in the Gulf. Developers can command a premium, Marriott grows its brands, and the buyer gets a life with a certain level of luxury service built in. “So it’s a win for all three parties,” Walia says. “We used to do it attached to hotels, but now we do it standalone.”
And AI, the topic of conversation at every industry dinner this year? Walia’s view is that the technology will take over the friction, not the feeling. “AI will facilitate it; it’ll help make it easier,” he says of the more mundane hospitality tasks it can streamline. “I think it’s going to enhance more than anything else. It’s going to create that capacity and the time for people to focus more on the guest and building lasting relationships with them.” Because underneath it all, the fundamentals haven’t changed much since the first traveller knocked on the first door at dusk. “It’s a hot shower, a good meal, perhaps a great conversation,” Walia says of hospitality’s origins. Strip away the technology and the tiers and the apps, and “what people want is authenticity back”.
But possibly the most telling story about how Walia views hospitality – and, by extension, perhaps a clue to his rise through the ranks at Marriott – is the one he tells about water. Water at 99°C is simply hot water. Add one degree and it boils, creating steam, which can power engines. “It’s that one degree which made all the difference,” he explains. It is a one-degree shift he applies to everything he does: one more book, one more general manager called each day to check in, one more bucket-list place to visit. For Walia it comes down to always going the extra mile, because you never know if the next page of that book, the next catch up conversation, or the next destination will open up all sorts of new possibilities.
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: emirateswoman.com
