Arora Hotels, management and hotel operator of the forthcoming InterContinental London – The O2, has appointed Hasham Soliman as General Manager of the new 453-room luxury new hotel.
With 25 years’ experience in the hotel and hospitality industry, Soliman joins Arora Hotel’s latest and largest new hotel development from his role as Hotel Manager at Park Plaza Westminster Bridge London, bringing with him invaluable knowledge of the London market and solid experience managing an extensive conference, events and leisure product in the capital.
Prior to his role at Park Plaza Westminster Bridge, Soliman opened the Grange Tower Bridge Hotel & Spa as General Manager and spent eight years as a General Manager with Redefine/BDL Hotels, successfully opening and repositioning the Holiday Inn London Docklands as an award-winning market leader under the Crowne Plaza brand.
Surinder Arora, Founder and Chief Executive of Arora Hotels, comments, “I am delighted to welcome Hasham Soliman to the Arora Hotels team to manage our new flagship hotel in London. Hasham brings with him an essential operational and commercial understanding of the conference and events market, fantastic local knowledge of Greenwich, Canary Wharf and Docklands and has a results-driven attitude that exactly mirrors ours. In addition, we also considered Hasham’s luxury hotel experience and knowledge of franchise operations under global hotel brands within the InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) as paramount to his appointment and we are very excited to have him on board.”
Soliman adds, “Given the hotel’s location in London’s most exciting new district on the Greenwich Peninsula and its huge 4,500sqm+ event space, the InterContinental® London – The O2 is one of the most anticipated new London hotels for the luxury events and leisure market and I am thrilled to be part of it. To open an iconic InterContinental hotel in London under the management expertise of Arora Hotels is a great opportunity and I am looking forward to overseeing the final stages of the hotel development and building a strong team that will deliver an exceptional guest experiences to be proud of.”
Soliman secured his hotel qualification at the University of Westminster and continued his hotel education at Ashridge Business School and Cornell School of Hotel Administration. His hospitality career began in 1991 with an Accor traineeship in Marseille, France after which he moved to London to work at The Montcalm for two years. Soliman followed this with management roles at The Mayfair InterContinental and a front of house position within the pre-opening team at Chelsea Village Hotels. In addition, experience garnered as General Manager of the first Ramada Encore hotel led Soliman to develop the budget brand for Wyndham Worldwide.
The 18 storey InterContinental London – The O2 is currently under construction as part of a 7.6 acre development scheme on the Greenwich Peninsula, opposite Canary Wharf and adjoining The O2 arena. Opening Autumn/Winter 2015, the hotel features a dedicated conference centre with an impressive 3,100sqm pillar-free ballroom and pre-function space overlooking the River Thames, as well as a fine dining and all-day dining restaurant, Tea Salon, glamourous Sky Bar and a luxury spa with indoor swimming pool.
The InterContinental London – The O2 is managed and operated by The Arora Group under a franchise agreement with InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG).
