#GLF18 | Serge Trigano : "We have an unfortunate tendency to question ourselves every morning even when it works well"

Julie Fawcett, Managing Director, Qbic Hotels: "Qbic is a very young brand. We wanted our brand to be different and so we needed to understand our position and the context of what was going on around us. The first thing is that a huge growth was going on in the budget world, the second thing was a boom in the lifestyle category. People want experiences.

What we want to build things cheaply as an economy brand. With Qbic we put our rooms together in 3 hours, so a white box turns into a really functional hotel room that is more cost effectiven. A real estate proposition is not enough to make it interesting to the customer but this is the starting point. We have a simple design position that is totally made for adapting and improving. It is a fundamental point for Qbic business.

The public spaces that we put together clearly needed to be reactivated. So we brought together the community and our guests to improving our public spaces.

There are many lifestyle brands so if you want to be successful, you have to build investment into structures."

Meindert-Jan Tjoeng, Director Development & Investment, Citizen M: “We started from scratch in 2005/2006; we are real estate and hotel specialists. Now for the last few years, we have created a portfolio of 12 hotels in operation and 18 under development globally. In the next few years, we are really trying to push it to the next stages, focusing on the US, Europe and Asia. To do this we need to be a little more creative. We are focused on bringing affordable luxury to city center locations. At first we focused on airport locations and business locations, and now we are focusing more and more on city centers. We are opening in...