Meeting News - February 11, 2008 - (Page 12)

Newsmaker Q + A Burt Cabanas’ positive attitude + determination = inﬂuence By Rayna Katz It’s not unusual for Burt Cabanas, founder, chairman, and CEO of Benchmark Hospitality International, to receive an accolade. But unlike many of the awards he’s received from the hospitality industry, this one singled him out for both his work and his background: He was named one of “100 Most Inﬂuential Hispanic Business Leaders” by Hispanic Business magazine. MeetingNews caught up with Cabanas to ﬁnd out what propels this powerful man. isn’t anything anyone can throw at you that you can’t overcome. occupancy is going to be in hotels and resorts, so someone has to be told that we’re a segment of the meetings market that ﬁlls a need. Q A Q A But how come you have never developed a defeatist mentality, after all you have experienced? My mother never would have allowed that. It’s not in her makeup. Q A former employee—Ben Baez—who you continue to mentor, nominated you for this award, and when you heard that two other people on the list were hoteliers, you made the point of congratulating them publicly. Why did you do these unselﬁsh things, rather than basking in the glow of your success? In terms of Ben, we have known each other since I was an assistant front ofﬁce manager at at the Sheraton Four Ambassadors, in Miami, and he was a room clerk. We’ve been friends ever since, and he later came to work at one of our properties. I like to play the mentor role, and I do it with a lot of people. If I see people with a positive attitude, determination, and energy, I will go out of my way to help them because I think this country goes out of its way to help people who have the right attitude. There are a million resumes out there that are useless because the applicants have the wrong attitude. Customers look for people who are positive. I reached out to the two hoteliers because their companies did nothing to acknowledge their achievement, and, at the end of the day, I felt more proud of those two people than annoyed by the stupidity of their employers. A It’s because of my mother, without a doubt. She was exiled from Cuba, along with my sister and me in the late 1950s. Now 84, she just sold her bicycle two years ago and has never learned English. She believes that the worst gesture is the one never made. Also, if at age 10 you lose your language and your country—after losing your father at seven—there 12 MeetingNews February 11, 2008 Q A Who’s responsible for your positive attitude? Japan is going to be nuts for us. We are building our second property there; we’ve been selected in Nagoya and we’ll start construction next As someone who has been a mentor to year. Also, we’re in the bidding process on two many people, what do you think seniorproperties in Japan; one’s in Yokohama. [He level meeting planners should be teaching junior declined to reveal the other property’s site.] planners? We’re also looking at Central and South America. We’ve opened an ofﬁce in Santiago, Chile, and we An important lesson would will soon break ground on our be how to develop a gut ﬁrst property in Panama. From feeling for people and properthere, we will drive to the Paciﬁc ties. Sometimes, the property is coast to Playa Comejen, where in the right location, and the we’re building our ﬁrst resort. In planner has chosen the right all, we’re looking at five or six meeting room, but still [she] opportunities in the area. has that gut feeling about how In Europe, we are ﬁshing for to deliver a good meeting—the major projects in Denmark and antennae go up higher and that Barcelona. We believe our foray planner can pick up vibrations into Europe needs to be at a big beyond what [she] sees and property—rather than a conhears. verted mansion or castle, which Burt Cabanas That way, when your gut says is much smaller—in order to that something isn’t right, even create a window into our comFounder, Chairman, & CEO if everything appears ﬁne, you pany. A small property has to be Benchmark Hospitality can prepare for problems. It’s supported from the home ofﬁce, about developing that sixth and that’s not feasible. sense because, usually, when a The Complete Meeting Package (CMP), the meeting turns out to be a disaster, it turns out that all-inclusive pricing model for conference the planner later admits to having been caught centers, still has its detractors. What’s the future off guard. of the CMP? What opportunities are ahead, in terms of The issue isn’t whether to bundle or unbundle; what Benchmark can offer customers? it’s that we need to listen to the customer. If a There are markets domestically that still don’t meeting planner wants to skip a dinner to bring the have much conference center penetration group to a restaurant, we shouldn’t be so rigid that [which we’ll continue to watch]. Orlando, for our operations interfere with the planner’s desires. example, does over a million room nights of corpoWe should educate our sales executives about rate business, so there is room for seven or eight why the concept was created. But if a client needs conference centers, but none have ever ﬂourished something, those sales executives need to ﬁnd a way there. to do it. r Contact Rayna Katz at rayna.katz@nielsen.com No matter what city you’re in, the majority of the Q A Where are your sights focused outside of the United States? Q A Q A www.meetingnews.com http://www.meetingnews.com

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Meeting News - February 11, 2008

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