Creating world-class hospitality environments with Paul Boldy

My journey began in the UK, where I worked in construction project management. In 2004, I was offered a job working for a fitout business in Dubai, specialising in high-end hotel work. It was an exciting new challenge, one which took my career and my life in a whole new direction. After three years in this role, my work caught the eye of Jumeirah Hotels, who offered me the position of Group Director of Projects. This led to various consulting opportunities, where I leveraged my experience in construction and operations to deliver hotel projects across the region.

After a brief spell back in the UK, I returned to the UAE in 2013, working in hotel consultancy and design management across the Middle East and Africa, including a role as Regional Manager of Architecture, Design and Construction for Wyndham Hotels. Most recently, I was Managing Partner at RLA Global, a boutique hotel and leisure advisory firm.

I had worked with, and alongside, Benoy for a number of years, and I always enjoyed their approach to projects and working with their teams. It seemed like a natural progression that at some point we would bring my hospitality expertise, and my love of all things data, to Benoy and its sister company, Pragma. And here I am, starting the next stage of my journey!

Over the years, I’ve built up good relationships and market knowledge in the region. One thing I’ve learned is that in the Middle East personal relationships matter. If clients know, trust and like you, they’re far more likely to engage your services again. I also find it important to understand local customs, the small details and ways of working, as this ensures my approach is empathetic, appropriate and aligned with clients’ needs.

The market is maturing year on year, and it’s very buoyant and ambitious. This presents an exciting opportunity for Benoy and Pragma to shape an environment that benefits all parties – developers, operators and customers. Due to our approach and marriage of science and art, commercial acumen and creativity, it’s a market with real potential. What’s more, the leadership vision and appetite in the region, particularly in Saudi Arabia and Dubai, is really driving growth and innovation. They’re pushing the envelope in terms of infrastructure, master planning, technology and materiality, especially in hospitality, and Benoy is well positioned to benefit from these developments.

There’s something about the hospitality industry that gets under your skin. There is nothing better than feeling the energy on a hotel property when you’ve helped to craft and bring it to life.

There’s such a buzz with hotels, which I think comes from creating spaces that elevate experience, inspire connections and enable the delivery of truly exemplar service levels. The shared passion you feel, working for example with young Saudis, for whom these projects are so connected to their country’s future, it’s an incredibly powerful experience.

So, on the one hand it’s about people: the clients you work with and for whom you want to create value; the guests and end-users, whose experience you’re aiming to transform; and then the hospitality staff, whose morale and energy are bound up in a project’s success.

But I also love the side of the industry that’s data-focused and metric-driven. And my new role with Benoy really allows me to explore this area. I’m currently dividing my time between Benoy and Pragma, who specialise in data-driven insights, market analysis and commercial strategy. So, I’m able to engage in the feasibility work, using data and analytics to craft viable developments for clients, while also helping design teams deliver those projects. It’s an interesting balance.

My vision is for Benoy to continue creating transformative, world-class hospitality environments, by taking an approach that puts the guest experience at the heart of everything we do. My aim is that we also address the evolving needs of travellers and communities worldwide, while championing sustainability and technology integration to deliver design excellence.

By fostering a culture of creativity and thought leadership, I aim to position Benoy and Pragma as the global benchmark for data-driven design in hospitality. We also want every project we work on to reflect the highest standards of environmental stewardship and operational innovation. Through retrofitting and the creative reuse of old stock and redundant spaces, plus tighter control of energy consumption, we can work to promote more sustainable hospitality developments. We must also ensure that inclusivity and community engagement are fundamental considerations, creating projects that connect with local culture and provide opportunities for local people, producers and service providers.

I think post-covid we’ve seen a great reset in hospitality, with the pandemic accelerating trends that had become a little sluggish or stuck in the past. Themes like provenance, personalisation, sustainability and adaptability have really come to the fore in the last few years.

Experiential hospitality is a key focus area, with people looking for an immersive, creative experience as opposed to ‘just a vacation’. Increasingly, hospitality guests want to achieve some form of self-improvement, education or adventure through hospitality environments and offers, often linked to local landscapes or cultures. It’s about people looking for more meaningful experiences, which hospitality design schemes now need to support and enable.

Indeed, the guest value proposition has completely changed. Hyper-personalisation is really important, with guest experiences becoming very precisely shaped around personal behaviours and tastes. More and more, hotels are catering to guests’ preferred activities, sleep patterns and culinary choices, creating a fully personalised environment through specific services and facilities, and through details such as room temperature, lighting and ambiance.

And then there’s the increasing focus on circularity and responsibility. Guests want to know their stay isn’t going to negatively impact local environments or communities. Sustainable design and building practices, the longevity of materiality, will continue to be critically important. And so too the sense that hotels and guests are actually giving something back – socially, ecologically. In fact, I think we’re likely to see a shift from sustainable travel to regenerative travel and hospitality, with more proactive engagement with these issues in the years ahead.