Q & A with Jose Angel PreciadosCEO of CONFORTEL (ONCE Entrepreneurial Corporation)

by Jose Carlos de Santiago

Within the framework of the presentation of the CONFORTEL Group´s new image, Caribbean News Digital talked with Jose Angel Preciados of the HN Group, a man with a longstanding hotel industry career under his belt. That was the first conversation topic.

We also shared views about upcoming projects and the development strategy that CONFORTEL will get cracking from now on in the Spanish market.

Can you tell us about your own career, about how you turned out to be a successful man within this group, how you got this far and what new projects you´ve got in store?

Well, there´s no way I can possibly avoid speaking about a company I´ve spent my 18-year-old career in. I´m from Pamplona and it was there where I worked in a hotel for the first time, one from the Antonio Catalan´s company. I started moving up the ladder and cutting my entrepreneurial teeth all across Spain, in all of its regions, holding posts in Aragon, the Catalonian region, Madrid, Andalusia. More recently, I´ve served as manager of national operations for NH Hotels. I know I´m referring to a leading hotel chain that has been a harbinger in just about any lodging business worldwide, in every new business line, and this has been a great help to me every step of the way, especially with some new projects of my own, like CONFORTEL.

And how are you planning to pull off that makeover, especially of the kind of product that CONFORTEL has in the Spanish market right now? Are you considering any aggressive promotional blitz to make the public choose CONFORTEL?

First of all, we assessed our standards and our product, and right after that implemented a brand-new, homogenous line that we´re unveiling today and that we believe is going to catch on among the general public pretty quickly.

Secondly, we´ve revamped our corporate image with a new style, adapting it to the new changes we want to do about CONFORTEL, a new look that´s affecting all of our services targeting family travel, customers, executives, sportsmen, handicapped travelers. In a word, those who come looking for a different and customized service.

Last but not least, we count on a tremendously professional staff that´s bent on making this project a dream come true.

What foreign tour operators will be working with your product? What premier markets overseas will you be targeting?

Well, the focus is now on our presence in the vacation travel market, especially in the Balearic Islands and Huelva, with four compounds hooked up with international tours operators from such markets as Germany and the UK. They embrace roughly 90 percent of our business.

We also have plans to try our hand at other market niches because we really want to reach out to the entire world. The point is that, in the case of Spain, the British and German markets call the shots; they are the classics in this industry.

You´ve started introducing new policies in only a year and a half. How are you faring right now and how are you planning to move ahead?

There´s been an all-out shakeup of the team. Some of the new recruits are from the farm system and others come from within the industry. Secondly, as I said at the top of this interview, we´ve given our product a complete about-face and we´ve even built in a CRM to get to know our customers a whole lot better.

We´re also drawing a bead on the quality issue and trying to get our ducks in a row in many fronts. Professional training is one of those issues I´m talking about, and we´re trying to make it extensive to each and every hotel that we run. We´re relying on the help of the finest consultants and experts in the business, both from the turf and overseas.

This is a highly social company. ONCE has always valued dearly everything related to its own staff, its affiliates and partners. Has it ever occurred to you to paint an outer picture of ONCE in an effort to capture a kind of tourism that´s hitting lots of snags in other hotel chains, I mean, like the US and German markets, two segments that are very sensitive to this particular situation? Do you have any such offer in the works, some kind of statement to other sectors?

It´s no secret that our company´s assets and properties can only be compared to a few chains around the world, I mean, as far as treatment to handicapped guests is concerned. We´re the world´s leaders in that particular service. The relationship with the ONCE Group, chiefly with the corporation we depend upon, is fundamental.

We won´t rule out that kind of clientele, which as a matter of fact is quite important. We´re going to reach out to other markets rather than staying put with one or two business lines. We´re open to all possibilities that could represent additional values to such a professional project as CONFORTEL Hotels.