The chief executive of InterContinental Hotels Group has chosen one of his most upmarket hotels in the capital for our lunch. The InterContinental London Park Lane has a prime spot at the southern edge of Hyde Park, on the site of a former royal residence destroyed in the Blitz. The 449-room, five-star hotel is now home to an Italian restaurant run by Theo Randall, the chef who you may have seen on TV.
The IHG boss, Elie Maalouf, reckons the food is some of the best you can get outside of Italy, where he grew up, calling it “very authentic”. High praise indeed, but then Randall was awarded a Michelin star when he worked at The River Café. The menu features sea bream, guinea fowl and lamb rump, a far cry from the burger you might enjoy in a Holiday Inn Express, one of the group’s more affordable brands.
The waitress tells us that covers at the spacious restaurant have doubled in a year. I ask whether the accommodation upstairs is busy too, given the abundance of high-end lodgings in the area including a Bill Gates-owned Four Seasons just across the road. Yes, it is busy: it turns out that London has a shortage of places to stay, considering tourist demand.
As I dive into the zucchine fritte (fried courgettes, £7) which have been served as hors d’oeuvres, Maalouf tells me: “The hotel does very well with international travellers. London is an incredible destination. People come here from around the world, and there aren’t that many hotels that get added [to what is available]. There’s many that get renovated, but ultimately London probably has a shortage of hotels for the amount of people that like to visit, and also especially at this quality.”
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Maalouf, who describes Washington DC as his “personal home” but counts London as his “professional home”, eats at the restaurant often, and Randall, dressed in chef whites, pops over to say hello. The chef recommends the “sashimi grade” tuna tartare, which I choose as a starter (£20), and French sea bass — the special — for Maalouf’s main. I go for ravioli as a main (£28), taken in by the prospect of “mixed greens, ricotta, and a brown sage butter”.
It is tempting to have some wine to complete the La Dolce Vita experience but a busy afternoon lies ahead and we stick to water.
Our conversation turns to Maalouf’s intriguing multinational background. He was born in the US, but went to live in Lebanon at a very early age. With a father in the UN and trouble brewing in their home country, the family left and lived in Algeria for a while. They settled in Rome, where he went to school, and eventually moved to the US. When Maalouf arrived there in the early 1980s, he knew no one. Now he is the boss of a £13 billion hotel group where one million people around the world stay every night.
Maalouf, 60, chief executive since July 2023, talks me through IHG, which has 6,629 hotels and a dizzying array of brands, 20 at the last count, each catering to a different market segment “depending on what you need” — and what you can pay.
“They all have a purpose. Crowne Plaza does very well with the everyday business traveller. For lifestyle luxury, you go to Kimpton. People travel differently and have different tastes, different price points, different locations that they’re going to go to. We can have multiple brands in a market like the UK, all doing well.”
IHG operates an asset-light model which means that while the London-listed group may manage a hotel, it does not own the property. The InterContinental we are in is owned by a Middle Eastern family office but managed by the company. Others may be run by franchisees.
The starters arrive. Maalouf knows the menu so well that he can identify my yellow fin tuna’s garnish of capers, parsley and toasted breadcrumbs. He declares his minestrone soup with Swiss chard “amazing”.
While the majority of hotels in the group “have a Holiday in the name” (be that Inn or Express), IHG is about to go even more upmarket in London with the opening of a Six Senses in the final quarter of this year. It is being converted from the former Whiteleys department store in Bayswater and marks the first UK opening for the “ultra-luxury” brand. “It is going to be a step above,” says Maalouf. As well as 109 guest rooms and suites, it will have the first ever Six Senses private members club plus 14 branded residences offering access to the hotel’s facilities.
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In total, IHG has 355 hotels in the UK and another 25 in the pipeline but Maalouf would open more if he could. So what is stopping him? “There’s a high barrier to entry in the market with not a lot of available land, not a lot of available buildings. And of course, the planning cycle is extended. There’s a lot of competition for projects when they do become available. It’s expensive to build.”
The problems are not unique to London among major cities but the UK planning cycle is “probably more extended” than in other places. He praises the government’s desire to attract more private capital but adds that it would be better not to have “obstacles and deterrents” to that goal. “When you finally get a hotel open, it tends to do very well.”
IHG, whose brand is 80 years old, has weathered bigger storms than planning hurdles, most recently the pandemic. Despite macroeconomic ups and downs, Maalouf believes that there will always be an appetite for travel, particularly as the middle classes expand around the world. For that reason, India and China hold huge growth potential for IHG, which has 800 hotels open in China and 549 in the works. In India it has 47 and plans to add 60 more.
He is thoughtful on where the hotel industry sits in wider society, and its economic contribution. “We are at the centre of the community and people’s lives. Everything of any importance happens in a hotel in the world. Not only do people stay there on holiday or business, but they have weddings or ceremonies. The highest level diplomatic meetings in the world often happen in hotels, as do resolution and dispute events. Conferences, conventions, announcements all take place in them.”
Hotels can also improve local prosperity, he believes. “When we open an hotel in a village or in a small town, be that in the US, UK or China, that investment stays there, the work stays there. It creates opportunity and gives people a chance to stay in their communities.”
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With his engineering degree, how did he get into the hospitality business? Engineering was a “great discipline” and taught him to solve problems. He studied English too “because I always loved the liberal arts”. A master’s in business followed. His career, spanning real estate to consultancy, has been equally eclectic. “Along the way, there was one constant theme, which is building places where people have experiences.”
When not working, he likes to read history and sees family, often cooking with his 92-year-old mother. Italy and its food are clearly passions. He admires the large lemons from Amalfi that arrive with our main course: I tuck into the buttery ravioli while he has plain but plump grilled fish. At the end of our meal we discover that there are dishes from the Lazio area around Rome on a regional menu that we didn’t spot, and he is disappointed not to have tried the artichokes. He says he will have to come back for them.
The executive went to Italy for his last summer holiday, staying in a quiet village north of Rome. “It is purely pedestrian; you can’t drive into it. It is the first time I’ve taken two weeks [holiday] in a row. I worked a little bit from there. It is perfectly peaceful. I think we are going to go back for two weeks this summer.”
We finish lunch with coffee: an espresso for me and a decaffeinated macchiato for him. They come with a selection of four desserts. I have the delicious rhubarb panna cotta (£12) but am too full for any more. Health-conscious Maalouf, who has a work dinner later on, opts for the fresh raspberries instead. Three beautiful cake slices lie between us, untouched. Thank goodness for doggy bags, we agree.
The desserts, including a ricotta cheesecake with sultanas (£9), turn out to be divine, just like the rest of Randall’s menu, which is surprisingly affordable for the quality of the fare.
CV
Age: 60
• Education: Notre Dame International School in Rome, BA from Virginia Tech and an MBA from the University of Virginia, Darden School of Business
• 1989 – 1997: Director of Planning, Weyerhaeuser Real Estate Company
• 1997 – 2011: HMSHost Corporation, including roles as president and CEO
• 2012 – 2014: Senior adviser, McKinsey & Company
• 2015 – Present: IHG Hotels & Resorts, chief executive since 2023
Family: Married with three sons.
