Irish hotelier takes luxury to a new level in Dubai

Bound for Dubai in 1991, Gerald Lawless turned off the radio on the morning that Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in an effort to ensure that his wife, Neasa, did not hear the news, She had, but they travelled anyway.

Today, Lawless is in charge of 11,500 Jumeirah staff, a number that will grow to 20,000 in a few years, and 70,000 "in time" as its frantic expansion plans gather pace.

The group's flagship, the Burj al Arab, is, literally, built in the shape of a sail on its own specially-created island, offering seven-star service, with eight staff for each guest - all for an average of €1,200 a night.

"We like to say that it is the world's most luxurious hotel. Guests vote with their feet. We have a 30 per cent repeat business rate. We find that people like staying here, and they come back again and again."

Bill Clinton has stayed a few times. So too has Nelson Mandela. Just about every head of state from the Gulf has too. Tiger Woods teed off from the helicopter pad on the roof. "Andre Agassi and Roger Federer played tennis there. Ronan Keating recorded his latest album there," said Mr Lawless.

Built on the orders of Dubai's ruler, Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Burj was deliberately built to be the emirate's icon, "our Eiffel Tower, our Sydney Opera House".

"It is an aspirational place. Someone said a few years ago that there were three things that one should do in life: fly in Concorde, sail on the QEII and stay in the Burj. "Well, the QEII has been overtaken by the Queen Mary II. Concorde doesn't fly any more, but the Burj is still here," said Lawless, who trained in Shannon Hotel Management School.

"We are very proud of the fact that it does make a healthy profit - it isn't just a statement - not only in terms of operating profit, but in terms of a return on the investment," he declared.

Having left Shannon, Lawless worked for Trust House Forte, eventually moving to Dubai in 1978 to run of the company's hotels, staying until 1982. From there, he went to South Africa, Britain and Bahrain, before returning to Ireland in 1988 to manage the Shelbourne Hotel.

"From there I moved back to London and looked after the group's Caribbean and Middle East hotels from Slough, which was a lot less exotic than the places that I was looking after," he said.

Shortly after Granada bought Trust House Forte in the mid-1990s, Lawless met representatives of Sheikh Maktoum.

"They offered me the chance to be part of setting up Jumeirah group in 1997. It was such an opportunity to come up. It would be any hotelier's dream to set up something like Jumeirah Beach Hotel, our first hotel. And we had really enjoyed living in Dubai.

"We hadn't wanted to move and there was always the chance of that happening when I worked for an international chain, particularly given that we had been here for seven years."

Throughout, he and his wife Neasa kept up strong links with home, while his sons, Tom and Michael are studying in Britain - one in law and another with the Benedictines in Ampleforth. Their daughter, Angelina, works in the Burj al Arab.

Since Jumeirah Beach was opened, the company has built eight hotels in Dubai, and bought others abroad, including the Carlton Towers in London, and Essex House overlooking New York's Central Park.

"We nearly have a management agreement for a Shanghai hotel and we are close to finalising one in Beijing, and an exclusive private island off Phuket in Thailand.

"In the pipeline, we have 80 hotels going on at the moment. We hope to have 57 hotels in operation by 2011. We have 11,500 colleagues. And we call them that, colleagues. We put a lot of effort on staff. And we look after them.

"We will probably go to 20,000 in a few years, and up to 70,000 in time. It's quite an exciting challenge. We would probably be still quite small by international standards, but we want to develop Jumeirah as a brand with the most luxurious hotels in the world."

Though Dubai offers work permits for foreign workers, the authorities now want to encourage locals into private companies. "It was accepted before that most locals went into public service jobs, but the sheikh believes that you must encourage people into private enterprise.

"They are taking to it really well. We have gone from having just 10 local employees to having 302," he said.

Although Lawless refuses to offer advice to Irish people interested in buying foreign properties, he is bullish about Dubai's prospects. "I personally believe in Dubai's future. The centre of activity is moving very much towards Asia. I don't mean that Europe and the US are going to collapse, but Asia has come of age. Dubai will achieve its ambition to be one of the major international locations.

"The policies of the government here are very clever, very intelligent. The United Arab Emirates is known as the Switzerland of the region and it is becoming the model for other countries in the region: Qatar, Bahrain, Oman."

And it is a region in which Ireland must do business and must be seen to do business: "It was great to see Bertie Ahern out here. The fact that the trade mission was led by the Taoiseach gave it great status," he says.