Facilities management services company, FARNEK has joined the line up of sponsors at this year’s GM Leaders Conference and is set to take the stage to enlighten hoteliers on how to save money and boost CSR in conjunction with each-other.
Sandrine Le Biavant, director of consultancy at FARNEK Avireal, discusses the company’s participation in the conference.
What are your core services? 
FARNEK is a facilities management company specialising in maintenance, cleaning and security services for residential, commercial buildings including malls, hotels and entertainment parks.
Its consultancy branch FARNEK Middle East provides specialist sustainability solutions for the hospitality sector working with more than 100 hotels throughout the Middle East and Africa. As a consultancy, Farnek is also the M.E. preferred partner of Green Globe, the leading international sustainability certification for the tourism and hospitality industry.
In terms of solutions, Farnek has developed Hotel Optimizer, an online internet-based tool that enables hotels to monitor and benchmark their water and energy consumption as well as the amount of waste and carbon emissions generated, against similar sized buildings as well as those within their competitive set.
Our team of consultants consists of accredited energy auditors and waste management experts who can optimise systems with the aim of generating considerable savings. Farnek is also the preferred partner of myclimate and created the concept of offsetting the carbon emissions generated by hotel guests in conjunction with UAE-based Time Hotels.
Why have you chosen to partner with The GM Leaders Conference 2016?
The GM Leaders Conference event has a compact and efficient format that enables general managers to learn about the latest trends enabling them to make better informed decisions that may directly or indirectly affect their operations and ultimately their bottom line.
Moreover we have noticed that a growing number of general managers now have sustainability KPIs (targets to reduce utility bills; CSR programs and certification) and that they are required to develop and drive action plans. As sustainability specialists, we feel that it is our responsibility, to offer our expertise in this area, enlightening hotels on how to optimise their processes, systems and equipment, which can often generate significant savings, for a cost centre that is second only to the payroll in terms of hotel expense.
What are the top trends driving the hospitality industry currently?
How to generate profits smartly.
Brand identity to create a difference
How to optimise processes to make the best of the human resources
What are the top positive and negative trends driving business in your specific sector?
Energy management is a key performance metric now, we can see that we are moving from talks to plans and for the more advanced from plans to implementation, with up to 10% initial energy savings and 20% subsequently after further energy audits and targeted investments.
Many hotel managers are now looking closely at how they manage their waste. This is an aspect of sustainability that our waste consultants can support hotel operators, by implementing efficient and long-lasting reduce, reuse and recycle strategies.
Negatives
Hotels sometimes think that they make energy and water savings as occupancies or guest nights decline due to the current economic slowdown, however these are not genuine savings. Furthermore it is during challenging market conditions that it is even more important to identify cost-saving opportunities. Hotel Optimizer can monitor consumption and analyse/compare the true savings, taking into consideration reduced or increased occupancy levels – these results can also be seasonally adjusted.
The temptation for hotel management to think short term during economic downturns is not so much a trend but more of a natural reaction. Given the state of the economy and the supply and demand dynamics between now and 2020, many hotels and suppliers may need to adopt longer term strategies to be successful moving forward.
Which session are you most excited about at the conference?
Well… surely my own session, which I hope will inspire hotel professionals to make objective business decisions that lead to sustainable practices that are environmentally friendly. That aside I am really eager to listen to ‘retain your A-team’ as I am always prepared to offer my support to any hotel team and their efforts towards sustainability. So any advice on this topic would be most welcome.
