As travel confidence slowly returns after a turbulent year, the hospitality industry is confronting a changed reality: international demand can no longer be taken for granted, while owners are demanding greater agility from hotel operators. In this Q&A, Anne Mulcahy, Senior Vice President, Marketing & Communications at Aleph Hospitality, discusses rebuilding traveller trust, communicating during disruption, the growing importance of local guests, Africa’s hospitality potential and why Aleph is working towards a portfolio of 100 hotels by 2029.
This year tested traveller confidence across the region in a way few could have predicted. How do you go about rebuilding that trust once things start to settle?
Confidence returns before bookings return. A ceasefire creates headlines overnight, but international travellers, corporate travel planners and event organizers need longer than that to regain certainty. The job is twofold: rebuilding confidence in the destination and in the individual property.
Consistency does more here than campaign spend. Dubai has shown repeatedly how clear, factual communication and a pro-investment stance restore confidence, backed by coordinated safety messaging, targeted airline and visa incentives and joint destination marketing. As an operator managing hotels across the Middle East and Africa, we see firsthand that destinations taking that approach rebound faster than the regional average.
At property level we apply the same rule we apply internally: be factual, be measured, be proactive. People expect honesty more than they expect answers.
When the ground shifts that fast, marketing plans usually have to shift with it. What actually changed in how Aleph communicates during moments like this?
More direct contact internally and less broadcasting publicly.
Three things changed in practice. We aligned the leadership team before anything went out, because if the executive team is not aligned the organization feels it immediately, and so do owners. We agreed on a small number of key messages, kept them simple and repeated them across every channel rather than issuing something new each week. And we were explicit about what we knew, what we did not know and what we are doing about it.
We filtered everything through three questions: does it affect the owners’ financial performance, guest satisfaction or team engagement?
Not every market in the region felt this the same way. How does that kind of unevenness shape where and how Aleph chooses to grow next?
Unevenness is the normal condition in the hospitality industry, and it is part of why Aleph Hospitality is built the way it is. We operate across 24 countries in the Middle East and Africa, so we are never dependent on a single demand cycle. When one region slows, another is usually running ahead.
We follow tourism momentum and we follow owners. Africa continues to be a major growth region. Around 60 percent of the population is under 25, the middle class is expanding, air connectivity has improved and visa policies have opened up. Quality accommodation is scarce, so investors can achieve higher returns there than in more mature regions. Rather than running every market from Dubai, we are putting our own teams on the ground in Casablanca, Abidjan, Cape Town and Nairobi, because local knowledge and regional networks are paramount to success in this business.
Independent operators like Aleph aren’t tied to one global brand promise. Has that flexibility become more of a selling point in a year like this one?
Yes, it has. Every major disruption prompts hotel owners to reevaluate their operating model, and this year has been no different.
When margins are squeezed and you need to move on cost, on which segments you are actually selling to, or on whether the property is still positioned correctly for the market it is in now, those conversations can take months inside a traditional brand management agreement. As an independent operator, we can do them in days.
Most of that difference in speed comes down to scale. An owner with one or five hotels sits differently in the priorities of a company managing several thousand, which has shareholders and global systems to consider. Our fee is tied entirely to the owner’s result, so when they win, we win. At the peak of Covid Aleph’s management fees were reversed for the worst three months so owners could keep paying staff on the ground.
Demand from hotel owners for an experienced independent operator keeps rising. We passed 50 hotels last year and we are realistically working towards 100 by 2029.
Guests seem to be weighing safety and stability more than they used to when picking a destination. How does that change the story a hotel brand needs to tell?
Safety has always sat high on a guest’s priority list. What has changed is that guests want to see it addressed openly.
So the story has to be factual and specific. Say what is actually in place, at the destination and at the property. Political stability, safety and reliable infrastructure are what turn a country into a destination people choose, so they belong in the marketing story rather than only in the operations manual.
At property level, guests look for the visible things: secure access, a team that knows what to do, straightforward information when something changes. A hotel that communicates plainly through a difficult period keeps trust that is expensive to rebuild afterwards.
A lot of the recovery talk points to mega-events and big moments pulling travelers back. Do you see that as a real long-term fix, or more of a short-term boost?
Both, and the difference comes down to what the host country builds in order to be ready, as Morocco is doing ahead of 2030. An event can force through airport expansion, transport links, visa reform and hotel construction that might otherwise drift for years. The crowds arrive and leave. The capacity built to meet it stays.
The risk is treating the event itself as the strategy. A more durable position comes from diversified source markets, a solid domestic and intra-GCC base, and infrastructure that holds when demand moves. The assets that perform over time are built around flexibility, disciplined execution and sustainable operating performance, rather than short-term market optimism.
After a year like this, what is one thing about how Aleph builds and markets its brand that you don’t think will go back to the way it was before?
This year highlighted the importance of the local guest. A hotel needs to be able to survive an extended period without international guests, finding ways to diversify revenue beyond rooms. That means marketing the food and beverage outlets, gym facilities, public spaces and meeting facilities to a domestic audience, and doing it continuously rather than turning it on when room occupancy drops.
That changes the marketing job. International visitors and local residents cannot be reached with the same campaign. They book through different channels and at much shorter notice, so the local side needs its own plan rather than a share of the international budget.
