A location in Syria isn’t the first choice for most hoteliers — unless they are working for Serena Hotels. Then, it’s ideal.
Serena Hotels runs a network of
“luxury resorts, safari lodges and hotels,” across East Africa and
Southern Asia. Part of its unconventional business plan is opening
five-star destinations in war torn places.
The chain is run by the Aga Khan Fund
for Economic Development, an agency that “focuses on building
enterprises in parts of the world that lack sufficient foreign direct
investment” by making “bold but calculated investments in situations
that are fragile and complex,”
according to its website.
The fund is bankrolled by Aga Kahn,
a billionaire investor, moderate Muslim leader and believed descendant
of the Prophet Muhammad, who acts as leader to some of the world’s 15
million Ismailis. He is the son of a playboy prince, Aly Khan, once
married to the Hollywood starlet Rita Hayworth.
“If you travel the developing world,
you see poverty is the driver of tragic despair, and there is the
possibility that any means out will be taken,” said Aga Khan in a rare
interview with the New York Times. By assisting the poor through
business, he said, “we are developing protection against extremism.”
There are Serena Hotels in Kigali,
Rwanda, and Islamabad, Pakistan, but the chain is eyeing locations in
Damascus, Syria, and two more in Afghanistan, reports Der Spiegel, a
German newspaper.
“They have calculated that countries
like that will require and do eventually require westerners,” said Seth
Jones, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, an American
think tank, who recently stayed at a Serena Hotel in Kabul,
Afghanistan.
“If you're used to staying at a Ritz-Carleton or an Intercontinental, they're not that dissimilar,” said Jones.
Running a westernized hotel in the
heartland of terrorist organizations and in the middle of civil wars
calls for expansive security.
After the Kabul location was bombed
by the Taliban in 2008, a concrete perimeter wall was erected. Today,
swarms of armed guards patrol the grounds. It’s reported guests dine in
bullet-proof vests.
The east-west tension is present inside as well. In 2007, Laszlo Barna screened Shake Hands with the Devil, a film based on Gen. Romeo Dallaire’s book about the Rwanda genocide, in the country’s capital at the Serena Hotel.
“It was probably one of the most nerve-wracking screenings I’ve ever had,” said Barna at the time.
Still, if the Islamabad location is
anything to go by, future Serena Hotels will have no problem attracting
foreigners, said Jones, the political scientist.
“It (the Islamabad Serena Hotel) has
got beautiful grounds, these little cafes, like a little bakery you can
sit out and have coffee,” he said.
“It's very sort of un-Islamabad now.”
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1213793--hotels-bankrolled-by-muslim-spiritual-leader-eyeing-locations-in-syria-other-conflict-zones