Meet Franck Louapre, GM at Maison Albar Hotels Pont Neuf.

Franck Louapre, General Manager at Maison Albar Hotels Le Pont-Neuf took part in the interview: “Hotels, a profession, a meeting”. Thanks to him for taking the time to share with us his experience and his vision of the world on our sector.

Can you please introduce yourself?

My name is Franck Louapre, I am Director of the Maison Albar Hotel Le Pont Neuf since the end of 2020.

First of all, I completed a course in the hotel and restaurant business. I then strengthened my career with a degree in business management. I have been working in the hotel and restaurant industry for over 25 years., I started by working in the independent and family hotel industry and then I moved to the Barrière Group where I stayed for 12 years.

Today I work for the Centaurus Group within the Maison Albar Hotels brand as Director.

During these 25 years of experience in the hotel and restaurant industry, was there a position that you held that would stand out from the others?

The function that changed everything in my professional career was the position of Operations Director in Deauville. I worked for 7 years as a management controller in the same group (Barrière) and then I became director of operations.

Being Operations Director allowed me to combine 2 experiences: managing teams and managing a seasonal business on a daily basis in Deauville: I worked at the front end; in contact with customers but also in the back office with everything that involves managing a business.

During this experience, I had the chance to contribute to the opening of an establishment in Courchevel over a season. These are challenges that teach you a lot, especially how to adapt at all times. It also teaches you that rigor must be applied in every action.

Each entity is really different depending on its location: if you are a seasonal establishment by the sea, you do not work at all in the same way as a city establishment or even a mountain establishment. Your vision is different, you are working on a different customer segmentation and also in terms of organization the teams do not work in the same way.

As Operations Director do you have back work with management control and a front end with customer contact?

When you are Operations Director, you necessarily have customer contact because you manage the various department heads. Personally, I managed 12 department managers ranging from support to front-line jobs. This allows you to have contact with customers who come to stay and visit your home. Here, (at Maison Albar Hotels Le Pont Neuf), you are the promoter of the house, you promote its entire appearance, its image, and even its signature.

At the same time, you have the management function. You supervise the various support professions: human resources, management controller or even internal audit. It is in this function that you have the role of a true business manager.

You have a certain amount of autonomy. Your establishment belongs to a group but you have to present a budget that you must follow. Your role is to enforce this budget and this is where the function is transversal because it affects all the professions in the home (the hotel). It's interesting because in your mind you know where you come from and where you are going.

You are in contact with all the services and you are building a different strategy for each of them, it is rewarding. In fact, it is this experience that allowed me to have the position that I have today.

Thanks to this position, you became the managing director of Maison Albar Hotels Le Pont Neuf. Can you quickly present the establishment, its history and its challenges?

The Maison Albar Hotels le Pont Neuf is an establishment of the Centaurus Hospitality Odyssey group, which opened in 2016.

This first flagship from the Maison Albar Hotels collection was decorated by Alexandre Danan, who was inspired by the work of the artist Cristo that he created. 1985 by enveloping the Pont Neuf. Here he was able to create a real cocoon in the heart of Paris where everything is just curved lines (curtains, wood carving, parquet)

This enveloping effect is perfectly combined with the very chic 1930s furniture that gives a real personality to the establishment.

Our urban inn Odette, the House's culinary signature, highlights vegetable and vegetable cuisine. Associated with Maison Rostang, we offer seasonal and 100% homemade cuisine

We also offer a magnificent wellness area in the heart of Paris, the Pont-Neuf Spa with a swimming pool, a jacuzzi, a steam room, a sensory shower, a fitness area and three treatment rooms.

We offer a true “Parisian House” experience in the heart of Paris.

The challenges in relation to our job as a Parisian hotelier have been multiple since the health crisis. This period allowed us to adapt quickly according to the evolution of the measures and their impacts on our market. Today, we can say that we have become a lot reactive and agile, allowing us to adapt quickly to each situation.

What will be the main challenges that hoteliers will have to face in the coming months?

The main challenges will be the promotion of our hotel offer and our business with the consolidation of our teams. Two essential topics to deal with the future calmly.

Promotion means being present in the market, offering experiences and differentiating your offer. When I talk about experience (for a 5* hotel), it's a hyper-personalized level of service, it means understanding what the host expects before, during and after their stay.

What we expect in the modern hotel business is not to wait for someone to come looking for information, but rather to provide them with information in relation to what we know about them.

The second challenge is the consolidation of teams in the hotel industry. As a hotelier, you can't do anything alone. We need a team. We are facing an unprecedented crisis in the sector: there is a real shortage of professionals and a real lack of skills.

We must not hide to say it, we are facing a period where we want to really promote “tailor-made” products but besides that, we do not have the teams that allow it. We must therefore work on recruitment, but especially on training.

To strengthen your teams, are you putting things in place?

Since this year, we have begun to implement quality standards that have been reworked a bit in order to be consistent with the positioning of Maison Albar Hotels in order to properly define the know-how and know-how of Maison Albar Hotels Le Pont-Neuf.

It is the creation of “Service Signatures” that creates the specific identity of a boutique hotel where real personalization of service is sought. By involving teams in our standards project, we are consolidating team cohesion around a common project where everyone is an actor in this very motivating challenge.

At the same time, we are beginning to evolve our collaborative spaces to make them more user-friendly.

What do you think of digital technology in the hotel market? For what use (s) could this be interesting and what would be the excesses?

It is a fact to have digital everywhere. Everyone uses smartphones so their use is very important! We use digital technology before our stay to prepare and during our stay to order something, for example room service. It is therefore important to let digital technology develop, because it allows us to improve the promotion of tailor-made stays.

On the other hand, digital technology must always be combined with humans. For the budget hotel industry: digital technology perfectly meets the expectations of the customer and the economic constraints of the hotelier. It allows it to maintain a good quality/price ratio.

For high-end hotels (5 stars), digital technology must of course be developed and combined by personalized service delivery.

Moreover, the concierge service with professional and dedicated concierges is essential for 5-star hotels. Indeed, these men and women make it possible to convey the long-awaited luxury in our Houses where we promote tailor-made experiences. Digital technology alone cannot meet the requirements of our guests.

Do you have advice for a hotelier who wants to launch an establishment?

The main advice would be the choice of the geographical location of its hotel.

It is the location that is essential for the good development of a business.

With a good location, you make everyone happy: to your establishment because the business works, and to your customers because it is super interesting to come to a hotel that has access to everything.

The example of the Barrière Group perfectly illustrates my point. Their strategy has always been and is still today to first find a great place and then set up their hotel.

In my opinion, it is this choice that makes the difference, the geographical location is the essence of the hotel world.

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