Direction of travel in 2026 and why all businesses need talent with a hospitality-first mindset

0:11Hello and welcome to The Entrepreneurs on Monocle Radio, the show all about inspiring people, innovative companies and fresh ideas in global business. On today's programme, we're exploring the direction of travel as we head into a new year and taking a view from hospitality on the ground to premium experience in the skies. First, we meet the founder of a private aviation company that's built a global network across four continents in just five years. There is bigger demand on the private jet requests. It has proven to be a product that there are people looking for it, but it's just the reachability.

0:51And later, we'll hear why curiosity is the word of the new year for travel patterns and hear why every business can learn from hospitality-minded teams. You have to be passionate about serving people. You can teach any skill, but if you have that intrinsic desire to connect with somebody and to make somebody happy, you're meant for hospitality. This is The Entrepreneurs with me, Tom Edwards.

1:26You're listening to The Entrepreneurs. Ahmed Al-Hawari is the co-founder and chairman of Mayfair Jets, a premier aviation solutions provider he launched with his business partner, Mohamed Hamid just five years ago in Dubai. Since then, the company has rapidly expanded its global footprint, with operations spanning Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, multiple European hubs, and soon across the Atlantic as well. Our Laura Kramer caught up with Ahmed to talk about the company's remarkable international reach and the evolution of its business. Laura began by asking him about the early days and launching an aviation company just before the world shut down.

2:05In aviation, we're used to ups and downs all the time. Like you have everything set for the flight to go, then out of nothing, just a very small part in the cockpit or somewhere just goes wrong, and the aircraft is AUG, aircraft on ground, so we're not taken off. And we have to handle the situation, handle the customers on board, etc., and handle the legality of the crew hours, blah, blah, blah, and being at the airport, paying the expenses of it. So it wasn't a great shock. It kind of like, yeah, worried us a bit. But God is gracious. Like a few days after that, we started receiving from, of course, our network of relations in the industry and clientele.

2:51We've started receiving requests for evacuation flights, repatriation flights. Before people were starting knowing that the lockdown is happening or will happen. So they started actually thinking ahead. And yeah, we started doing that. And we had some even some funny stories that we will never forget. So actually COVID, I'm sorry to say that was good for us. It happens. And I'm sure it helped you frame the idea for the business more too, because you saw, oh, this is the opportunity. These are things that we could be doing. And you probably learned so much during that time. we've been in the industry for quite some time we've seen situations that were hard to take certain decisions during the occurrences like for example the volcanic ash of the icelandic volcano in 2008 a couple of years after that the arab spring and closure of certain airports and curfews so you do have the experience that you've built up through the years and it's time to utilize it when it's your own business so I remember during the volcanic ash people were backlogged at airports I was at that time working for a company that now ceases to exist BMI British Midlands International I was based in Cairo and yeah we had three days passengers backlogged at the airport they didn't know what to do so and no PAs in the airport no one is talking to anyone so I actually had to literally come stand up on the checking counter and shout at people who's got medical condition and 200 people would just raise their hands and they're bodybuilders and full fitted so then who's with family a guy will grab a kid who doesn't know Yes, I am here.

4:47So it's fun. But came the pandemic when we started Mayfair Jets. The situation was a little different. This is some sort of a crisis. People are worried. They don't know what's the impact on their lives, on their health. So we had to be a little bit more sensitive handling the situation. Of course, we have to be sensitive in all such situations. We started first by offering our private jet services, but then we came to find that there are other people who are not able to afford this. So we started offering bigger commercial jets to actually take passengers back home. And that worked very good.

5:28Later on came the demand for the masks. Yeah, so exactly. Had to fly those everywhere. Exactly. Right. Then came the medical aids flights where we had to send vaccines from two. So the whole phases of the pandemic, we've been through it and it's treated us on a business level very good. And it's proven to the market and to our clients that we are able to actually fulfill our promises to them. Well, let's talk about the company today then. Five years in, what are all the services that you offer? And I would love to also know, why did you call it Mayfair Jets? Mayfair Jets is an area in London, which is, as the British say, it's one of the posh places in the UK.

6:20And actually, it's a very attractive name to a certain category of our clients, especially from the GCC area. So we thought, OK, we can actually use Mayfair Jets, Mayfair as a name and associate it with Jets. So it will actually be ear-catching for them. And it did work, especially I know Mayfair, and I love the neighborhood over there. So this is how the name came. And what are all the services that you provide now? We provide private jets to top VIPs, government officials, official delegations, etc. But also, we're not limited to this. We offer our services to certain international organizations, part of the United Nations, for example, for official diplomatic missions and so on.

7:13This is one part. Another part, we offer scheduled charter services out of predominantly Europe, from Germany, for example, Italy, France, Czech Republic, Poland, to summer holiday destinations. mostly the Red Sea area in Egypt but we also have scheduled flights to Tunisia to Turkey to Greece to Palma de Mallorca so in that section we actually have the full setup of full geared up airline only without the aircraft and the crew where we actually engage with our partner airlines to block the aircraft and the hours of flights only for our operation we've taken it a step Further, that we've actually hired the most professional, whether flight dispatchers to work for our operation control center 24-7, or even the most successful network planners or revenue managers.

8:10We also develop our own systems in-house. So our revenue management system is built purely by our team members in the revenue department, and they're doing a great job over there. That's one part. Another part comes because of the experience that we had from the crisis of Kabul in Afghanistan and alongside with the COVID period. So we offer services of evacuation flights to certain NGOs, some relief flights, some medical support or missions of doctors or people going for support to certain areas in the world. We make it reachable, doable and safe for them. And you can reach a lot more airports with a private jet, a smaller jet, can't you, than a bigger airline?

8:56You're absolutely right. And this actually differentiates us a little bit more than others in the market because we're a group of companies and we have eight global locations around the world. So we have the headquarters is in Dubai, but we have companies in Egypt, Saudi, Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy, Indonesia, and soon across the Atlantic as well. It helps us being with all time zones available, regardless of any time. Also mentioning this, we have our own OCC, which is 24-7 services, reachable by all the clients, and our multilingual call center based in Egypt, attending to all customers trying to reach us around the country.

9:42I also wanted to touch on the logo. It's a very fascinating logo. It looks like a ballerina dancing. Tell me about that. Well, when we started the idea of Mayfair Jets, we sat brainstorming together, myself and my partner, and we started drawing things on paper scraps. then it's very stereotype. It's very kind of traditional, the stereotype sort of wing that represents you're in the aviation industry. Then we thought, why don't we combine our philosophy with the relation to the industry, which is the wings and aircraft. So we thought the most flexible form of human is actually the ballerina. Right.

10:27She's also with the feminine characteristics of being tender, gentle, but yet super flexible, able to move and able to do all those artistic sentences with amazement or amusement to the audience. So we thought the best thing to resemble that would be such an image of an athlete reflecting flexibility and readiness. Yes. Well, let's get into the travel then, because you're best placed to tell us where the growing markets, where are maybe the places that people are kind of cooling off on. What are you seeing? There are too many factors that would actually change the compass of direction of travel, one of which is globally now, which is the general economical situation everywhere.

11:15and it has definitely affected the purchase power of a certain middle class category who were able to save a bit of money for the vacation season to be able to travel from A to B. But that has a little bit actually declined and they're more considering, for example, in Europe to have car trips from their home country to a nearby country, could be by the sea. however certain destinations are still trying to attract customers by lowering their prices developing their services warm destinations if you want to call them are still trying to compete with each other for example there is a non-stop competition between south of europe in particular let's say greece turkey and north of africa egypt and tunisia the competition is non-stop so it's here a drop in price here it's developing the quality which actually is good and healthy for the business because it keeps the business running however we've also noticed over the past couple of years that there is amazingly bigger demand on the private jet requests and it has proven to be a product that there are people looking for it but it's just the reachability now that we are in all those places i think thanks god we're able to be there for our customers however also looking at certain occasions like 2024 there was the world cup in europe and it killed the travel market everyone canceled their trips and just stayed at home to watch the competition so it affected the market big time next year comes the world cup in the us and canada So it again will, in this time, it will actually boost the travel because most of the people from that part of the world would like to go to the Western Hemisphere to actually see the countries participating, especially that FIFA has allowed a wider number of countries to participate in the petition.

13:23So which will definitely boost the travel industry next year. Well, that's really good news because we've been obviously reading a lot about how travel has gone down to the U.S., lots of reports out. But you're thinking, hey, 2026 is going to be a good year for it. I think, yes, if the visa policy is a bit changed and it's not up to me. Just before I let you go, tell me, what are you most excited for in 2026, whether for the business or for the industry? What makes you excited? When we started Mayfair Jets, we never thought that we would grow that big that fast. So now it's made us a little bit more greedy.

14:03So, yeah, if we could do it in such a short period, so actually we could double that in the upcoming five years. So I think 2026 will be into more investing in new team members or family members to join us to invade more areas of the industry, regardless wherever. ever. That was Ahmed Al-Hawari, co-founder and chairman of Mayfair Jets. And you can find out more about the business by heading to mayfairjets.com.

14:39You're listening to The Entrepreneurs. Shannon Knapp is the CEO and president of the Leading Hotels of the World, a nearly century-old Swiss-owned organisation, representing more than 400 independent luxury properties across 80 countries. From its headquarters in New York City, the company continues to champion great hoteliers and one-of-a-kind guest experiences across the globe. Shannon stopped by Monocle's pop-up radio studio at the recent international luxury travel market in Cannes to chat with our Laura Kramer about the evolving expectations of today's luxury traveller and the future of independent hospitality.

15:16Laura kicked things off by asking Shannon about LHW's impressive portfolio. So we have over 400 independent luxury hotels all around the world, 80 countries, six continents, not quite yet Antarctica. About 80 % of them are family-led, 90 % of them are independent, and 100 % of the collection is five-star luxury. And it's something that we pride ourselves on is really creating an exclusive collection of independent luxury hotels that deliver extraordinary experiences for travelers that is authentic, that is connected to people in place, and that creates story-worthy moments that today's luxury travelers are looking for.

15:55And when you're looking to add to the family, to bring somebody in, what are those factors that you're considering? Yeah, there's really three key things that we look at. Because we are an exclusively five-star luxury brand, the very first hurdle to clear is quality. We call it remarkable quality, And we're really looking to have hotels who can bring exceptional product and experiences to the portfolio and meet the very high bar for quality that we have. Secondly, we look at the remarkable people behind the hotels. So the owners, these visionaries of hospitality who have a passion for what they do.

16:29And, you know, we're really a collection that's all about bringing together this community of visionaries and celebrating and strengthening independence. That's really what we're all about. And then the third piece is uncommon experiences. So can you create an experience that is reflective of the culture, the place that you're in? Can you create story-worthy moments? So that's how we evaluate the prospects who wish to be a member of leading hotels in the world. And it works fairly well. We had a 13 % increase last year in terms of the number of hotels interested in membership. And we still only accept about 5 % every year, which was about 40 hotels this year.

17:05Now, I don't want to put you on the spot to pick a favorite baby by any chance because I would never, ever, ever ask that. Thank you. But tell me some of the unique experiences that people can find them. Yeah, I mean, I often go to one of my most special experiences was at the Royal Mansour in Marrakesh. An extraordinary service experience. And not only because of the extreme luxury and authenticity of the experience, but also because that hotel is very supportive of the community. not only provides jobs for hundreds of people in the community, but also supports an orphanage. So they create this beautiful community of children who they have generations now of support that they've given.

17:48And we have the opportunity to visit this orphanage and see the work in action in terms of how they supported the local community. So that's, to me, an extraordinary experience, not only because of the hotel experience, but because of the leadership role that they're playing in the community. I've had extraordinary experiences all over the world. Adair Manor is another favorite of mine in Ireland. Had the opportunity to go there, play golf, and just feel like living in a manner. It was quite extraordinary. You know, one of the things, obviously, president and CEO, many hats that you wear, a lot of data goes into this.

18:24Tell me about that, because I know you're very results-driven, a visionary, as many people have said about you. You would never say that about yourself. I'm sure you're too awful. But tell me about what are the data points? What are you using to make your decisions? Yeah, I mean, it depends on the context, right? But of course, we're constantly looking at our performance for our member hotels and how are we doing in terms of driving revenue to them? How are we doing in terms of driving new customers to them? How are we doing moving customers and travelers around the community of leading hotels?

18:52So cross-utilization is a number I look at as well. We're also very much so maniacally focused on the guest satisfaction of our travelers. Also, the satisfaction of our hoteliers with their experience with leading as our customers. And, of course, our employees, because from a leading hotel's perspective, I do think that it's our team that makes the experience so special for our hoteliers. So always look at those things. Keep an eye on the external environment as well. Try and get as much information as we can about competitive performance. Also, benchmarking information from partners like CoStar.

19:28There is no shortage of information. trends, leisure travel trends, business travel trends from McKinsey and others. So yeah, there's no shortage of data or information that we like to integrate into our strategies. It's just a matter of making sure that you do something like that, right? Is there anything that's maybe surprising you from all this data? Maybe looking forecasting to the next year that's like, oh, that's happening. Well, you know, so Leaning Hotels has had an extraordinary recovery from COVID. We really accelerated out of the curve or out of the downturn that was COVID. And we've had this is 2025 will be our fourth consecutive year of record revenue performance for our member hotels.

20:05We're growing 19 % year over year. And as I keep telling my members, at some point, this has to slow down. But when I look ahead to 2026, I see, in fact, we're 22 % ahead for next year at the same point we were at this time last year. So the momentum is continuing. And that momentum is not just driven by rate, it's being driven by volume. So reservations and room nights are up commensurate with how much the rate is up as well. So it's very healthy growth. And I think what we have learned is that the luxury traveler has changed their perspective on the role of travel in their life. It is no longer something that you maybe do once or twice a year or three times a year.

20:47It's something that is a part of who they are. It's their journey of self-discovery. And we're seeing that they're taking more trips than ever and they're going more places than ever. And it's extraordinary. I wanted to touch on the point you mentioned about community, because one thing that we keep reading about, certainly in the news, we keep seeing a lot of pushback against Airbnb, both from people who are like using it are saying, I don't want to pay to take out the garbage and I have to pay you a cleaning fee. At what point would it be better for me to just stay in a hotel? And I just wondered, a lot of the pushback also comes from how it impacts the communities and how it can really cost of living.

21:21It drives up rents From where you're sitting, how are you seeing that conversation? I think one of the challenges that hospitality has in general is that it's extremely hard to attract new labor to the market. And I think if you layer on the cost of living and cost of housing impacts that some models, and it's not just Airbnb, but that there's a lot of macroeconomic things that are happening as well. So when you layer that on, it makes it twice as hard for especially luxury hotels to find the labor that they need to deliver what is truly the luxury experience. Because anybody can build a beautiful hotel, but really it's the soul of the people that deliver the experience of that hotel that really define.

22:04So I look at it in terms of how it affects how some of these macroeconomic trends and other trends affect the ability for our hotels to do what they do. And that, from my perspective, cost of living, housing is a real big challenge. and then making a career in luxury or in any hospitality after COVID has been hard. A lot of people left the business and are not coming back. And so how do we make sure we make hospitality a really attractive career path? And what can we do to support that? That's education. That's awareness. That's changing the way some of our career development happens at the hotel, in the operations side, as well as on the brand side.

22:37So there's a lot of work that we as an organization can do and more collectively and impactfully we as an industry could do. I love that you brought that up. Are you a believer, for example, in hospitality schools? How are you finding the talent? How do you see somebody and think, oh, this person gets it? They know what we're about. We need them on our team. And they see it as a vocation. They see it as a long-term career. Yeah, no, it's a really great point. I think I believe in the hospitality schools very strongly. I think they're training amazing people. I think we have to do a better job of making sure that the people who go to hospitality school then come and work in hospitality and don't go to pharmaceuticals and don't go to other companies that are recruiting very heavily from hospitality schools because of that education.

23:16But as somebody who did not attend hospitality school and has diverse experience in financial services and other areas, I do think that the industry can benefit from having a diverse mix of talent, experience, and training. I think on the operational side, the number one thing is that you have to be passionate about serving people and being around people. And you can teach any skill, but if you have that intrinsic desire to connect with somebody and to make somebody happy, you're meant for hospitality. I think anybody can learn the skills. So I think it's really about discovering the type of person who could be passionate about this and is truly a vocation to make a career.

23:57Yeah, I was just going to say, you have to start poaching them from the finance schools then. Two can play the skill. That's right. That's right. No, I believe the industry will be stronger if we have a diverse mix of talent and experience, for sure. Oh, that's great. On that, once you have the talent, how do you keep your teams inspired, especially when the industry is moving so fast? Yeah, I think, you know, so from what I would consider a corporate level of leading, it's a little bit of a different animal than it is on the operational hotel side. For us, you know, leading hotels of the world, it's almost a hundred year old company, and we are very driven by our mission, which is to empower hoteliers, independent hoteliers to stay independent.

24:35That is what we are here to do. I won't go so far as to say we're mission based, but we're very close. And everybody who works at leading hotels of the world is passionate about that mission. So it's not hard to motivate them. They love what they do. They love the hotels. They love their clients and their guests, their customers. So from a motivation perspective for them, I think many of them, it comes from them directly. What I try and do is quite honestly, set a set of directions, set a strategy, set a vision, explain why that is, and then get out of the way and let them do what they do best.

25:10Because I think we have one of the best teams in the entire industry who are dedicated and passionate about what they do. You touched on this before, too. There is a lot of economics uncertainty right now, certainly geopolitical uncertainty. How does that impact you? How do you view it? Yeah, it's a great question because when we were talking earlier about what's surprising me, and I shared that, you know, next year is even stronger than this year, which was even stronger than last year. I think when some of the geopolitical issues emerged in the last 18 months or so, two years or so, I think I was very concerned.

25:42We were looking at cancellation rates every day. We were looking at production. Was it having any impact? And the fact of the matter is this curious traveler, this luxury traveler, because their perspective on travel has changed, it has not affected their desire to travel. Might they change destinations? Sure. Or they might choose to go somewhere else, but they are still traveling. And that is what is fueling this success that this entire industry is seeing, is just people who will no longer put off taking a trip. They might shift, but they won't put it off. We had somebody earlier who I asked him what the word for 2026 is in terms of travel.

26:21He said curiosity. So it seems like you're kind of maybe agreeing curiosity is really driving this right now. Oh, yeah, without a doubt. I mean, we see this, one of the trends that we're seeing is people exploring further afield, going to new destinations. We just added a hotel in Georgia. We have a hotel in Mongolia. We have a hotel in Reunion. And I think that people will continue, because they're traveling more often, they're not going to forego their favorite places. They're still going to go to their favorite places. But they're willing now to also go further afield to discover new things.

26:53And that has always been our focus as, you know, an independent collection. The only thing that combines or links our hotels together is really the commitment to quality and the fact that they are all individual and different. And so for us, curiosity has always been at the core of who our guest has been because they don't want to have the same experience in Tokyo that they're having in New York, that they're having in Miami. They want to have an experience that is unique and tied to the destination, to the people, to the culture. And that is exactly what our hotels do. And how important is it, you know, connectivity, actually, direct flights, travel, you know, to how a destination performs?

27:32Of course. I mean, if you can't get there easily, it's going to be hard for it to grow. But I think it's a blessing and a curse because I think the harder a destination is to get to, the less crowded it'll be and the more authentic discovery you can do as a traveler. So I think lift is important. You have to be able to get somewhere. but I think it's also not the worst thing to have to take a flight two, three, a boat to get somewhere because I think the rewarding experience on the other side of not having crowds and being able to truly immerse yourself in the experiences is pretty cool. I was just telling a story the other day to somebody.

28:11They asked me how I vacation and I say my number one rule is my vacations have to have at least two flights because I live in New York and you know if it's a direct flight from New York City, it's bound to be crowded. So for me, I try and take connecting flights somewhere to reduce the crowds and be able to have some untouched, pristine experiences. That was Shannon Knapp, the CEO and president of the Leading Hotels of the World. And you can find out more about the group by heading to lhw.com.

28:53And that's all for this episode of The Entrepreneurs. We'll be back at the same time next week. The show is produced by Laura Kramer with audio editing by Jack Dewars. You can listen again and find out more about the show at monocle.com. That's where you can subscribe to Monocle Magazine and read more about better businesses every month. If you'd like to get in touch with the team, do email Laura on lrk at monocle.com. I'm Tom Edwards. Goodbye, and thanks for listening to The Entrepreneurs, wishing you a fantastic 2026 from all the team.