Hospitality Design - July 2018 - 148

the maverick

RAUL LEAL
CEO
Virgin Hotels
Miami
For Virgin Hotels CEO Raul Leal, the people
he works with always come first. It's a
philosophy he's embraced since his early days,
when he worked alongside interior designerturned-GM Mary Ellen St. John at the 45-acre
Sheraton Royal Biscayne in Florida. During a
two-year gut job of the early 20th-century-era
property, Leal learned the ropes and received
"an incredible [design] education," he says. Now, "I'm so attuned
to those details that I'm able to participate and provide relevant
commentary on the design side," the Cuban-born hotelier points out.
He's honed that lesson with each job he's held throughout his
esteemed career. "People flourish in an environment where they
know the leader has a certain amount of stability," he explains. Since
going to school for hotel business management, Leal has managed a
number of restaurants and nightclubs, including the trendy Miami
club Daphne's-a passion that was evident early on as a teenager
working at the Everglades Hotel Miami. "I used to see the GM come
in every day, entertain, sign the tab, and I said, 'I want that job.'"
He spent time as a GM at Interstate Hotels & Resorts, Lane
Hotels, and Carnival Hotels before landing at Tecton Hospitality,
where, inspired by Ian Schrager's visionary work with boutique
hotels, he launched Desires Hotels in 2002. "Boutique hotels are a bit
more personal for a developer who does a Sheraton or a Marriott,"
Leal says. "On some level, it resembles what either they want to be
in life or what they aspire to." During his tenure, he helped bring

the Water Club in Puerto Rico to
profitability-"it will always have a
fond piece of my heart," he says-
and took on redoing Miami Beach's
only 5-Star property at the time, the
Betsy Hotel, a project that wound up
leading him to his next job.
After spending a night
there, Virgin Group founder and
philanthropist Richard Branson
"was blown away by the Betsy," Leal
recalls, sparking talks of Leal joining
the then-blossoming Virgin Hotels
company. He thought, "if there's one
brand that can make a difference,
this is it." Starting as president in
2010 before ascending to CEO in
2012, Leal helped bring the first
Virgin Hotel to fruition in Chicago three years later with the help
of Rockwell Group Europe. "We didn't want to be the next lifestyle
hotel that is [only] a club and rooms. We wanted to have a point of
view on the guest," he explains. Taking a female-centric focus with
an emphasis on comfort, guestrooms, dubbed chambers, feature a
dressing area that is separated from the bedroom by a sliding door
and beds with an extra corner bucket seat (so more people can work
or lounge at once) with Virgin's tongue-in-check ethos sprinkled
throughout, including porcelain dogs that stand guard outside some
guestroom doors.
With 12 hotels scheduled to open over the next two years,
including San Francisco (debuting this fall), Dallas, Nashville, New
York, the brand's European debut in Edinburgh, Scotland, and the
recently announced Las Vegas property (a renovation of the former
Hard Rock), Leal and Virgin Hotels are set to establish a new
breed of lifestyle hotels. "I am excited about the things we're doing
because we are pushing the envelope further," he says. "We're being
ourselves, and I think that's enough."

A rendering of the Virgin
Hotel Edinburgh, Scotland,
set to open in 2020 in the
landmark India Buildings
Hospitality Design - July 2018

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