Abdur Rahim Khan, the new manager of the Rex Hotel "My strategy is to make profits without showing the customers that the crisis exists"

With a vast experience and international qualifications in hospitality, the new manager of the Rex Hotel in Mamaia, Abdur Rahim Khan, promises that in the two years, as it takes the collaboration, the unit will increase profit despite the current difficult economic conditions 

After being left without a manager at the end of 2009, since January, management and profitability of the hotel are being handled by one of the best specialists on the domestic and international market profile, Abdur Rahim Khan.

Former general manager of Iaki hotel between February 2007 and December 2009, Abdur Rahim has now the responsibility of a three million EUR business, more than 50 employees out of season and 100 in the middle of summer. "I work for four years in Romania, I understand Romanian culture, laws and especially the rulers and I know how to make a business profitable", told us the new general manager of the most luxurious hotel in Mamaia. A simple look on his resume and we see that the hotel management representatives made the best choice. Outside references and experience gained in America, Asia and England the work for almost three years at Iaki hotel, owned by ex-football player Gheorghe Hagi, made a point for the hotel management when they decided to offer the manager job to Abdur Rahim Khan. In 2007, he succeeded to increase hotel occupancy by 12% over 2006, and profit by 38%. In 2008 also, when the hotel was being renovated, the manager was able to contribute to increased occupancy by 9% and 10% profit.

Exceptional international experience

Before reaching general manager in Romania, Rahim Khan was project manager at Global Catering Tamim in Saudi Arabia - between 2002 and 2004, Residence Inn Keeper at the Ramada Hotel in the United States - between 2001 and 2002, and before that he handled the sales to Marriot hotel in Pakistan for five years.
As for the educational part, the new manager of Rex Hotel has an MBA degree in marketing obtained at American International University in 1997 and he attended as well three years of college, specializing in hotel management at Intercollege in Cyprus. Since 2007, Rahim Khan is a lecturer at the American Hospitality Academy in Brasov and in 2006 he was professor of economics at Cambridge School in Constanta. He also participated at many trainings and workshops in the U.S., Great Britain and Pakistan.

"We focus on customer satisfaction"

The management plan the new manager wants to implement over the next two years aims mainly to increasing hotel profits, but with the attention focused on customer satisfaction. "In addition to the challenges of managing related to hotel reputation, its notoriousness must be maintained and improved. We should focus both on customer satisfaction and profit as well" declared the manager. He has made his annual management plan that must be implemented focused on three axes: marketing, sales and business. "I will give my plan to each department and I will supervise closely as they implement it. It is my task to verify and reach a target", the manager added.
As for his plans out-of-season, Rahim Khan intends to organize, at least once a month, preferably on weekends, special evenings with Italian, Chinese, Indian and Swedish cuisine, with chefs brought here to prepare delicacies. In addition, the current leadership also wants to offer customers golf lessons, using personnel from the Academy of Golf Demis Pappilion, and kite-surfing lessons. "It is possible to have some reduction of prices in the 2010 season. My strategy is to control costs, to make the business profitable without showing the customers the crisis exists, especially that the young and rich people are our important customers." In addition, the manager thought to adopt other strategies in terms of working with tourism operators. "We count on the fact that forecasts announced that summer of 2010 will be one of the hottest summers in the last decade and that we have more tourists than last year," the manager wanted to specify.