Mandarin Oriental, Doha recently appointed Thomas Kinsperger as the new General Manager.
Thomas will succeed Martin Schnider, who has served as the General Manager since the hotel’s opening in March 2019. Martin will continue his longstanding tenure with Mandarin Oriental as the General Manager of Mandarin Oriental, Kuala Lumpur.
With over 20 years of hospitality experience across Asia, Europe and the Middle East, Thomas brings a wealth of experience in his role. He joined the Mandarin Oriental, Doha in 2019 as the Hotel Manager and has since demonstrated his exceptional leadership capabilities.
Thomas holds an Executive MBA from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. As an Austrian national and a graduate of the Tourism School in Bludenz, Austria, with a major in Hotel Management, Thomas brings valuable expertise to his role. In his free time, he enjoys playing tennis and spending quality time with his family.
Marhaba was able to interview Thomas and have his thoughts on the hospitality industry.
You have been with the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group since 2008. What are your highlights/fondest memories during these 15 years?
I began my career with Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group in 2008 at the iconic Mandarin Oriental, Bangkok and worked for 10 years in various positions. This experience ingrained Mandarin Oriental’s signature oriental and Asian hospitality service and guiding principles in my day to day.
I continued growing with the brand working in prestigious properties including in Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, London followed by Project Director of The Residences in Mandarin Oriental, Bangkok, leading the team in opening 146 ultra luxury residences before joining Mandarin Oriental, Doha in 2019.
If you ask me about fondest memories, I don’t think there is one to single out; however, what I find the most rewarding is when colleagues who I worked closely with over the years are passionate about what they do and progress in their careers and when you keep in touch they show their appreciation.
What accolades have you received during your time at the Mandarin Oriental, Doha?
Mandarin Oriental, Doha has been consistently recognised throughout its operations from service, F&B and Spa since opening in March 2019. We sustained the distinction of a Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star award for four years since 2020, the only hotel in Doha, and then after awarded for the second and third year achieving Five-Stars for Spa and Hotel in 2023.
Can you tell us what the Mandarin Oriental, Doha offers to guests?
We pride ourselves on our Guiding Principles that underpin everything we do on a daily basis – Delighting our customers, Delighting our colleagues, Becoming the best, Working together and Acting with responsibility. Our dedicated colleagues deliver discreet, personalised service. They take pride in delighting our guests, meeting their every need and surpassing their expectations at all times.
Mandarin Oriental hotels are renowned for their innovative restaurants and our 10 dining outlets offer an exceptional array of culinary destinations to delight all tastes and preferences. From Mediterranean cuisine at IZU by Chef Izu Ani, to Liang offering authentic Chinese cuisine and Mosaic providing an experiential Silk Route dining experience in nine live cooking stations.
Meanwhile, the Spa provides unique wellness experiences that are defined by a way of life which focuses on physical, emotional and mental wellbeing. Our Spa provides a holistic experience for guests to complement their wellness journey from spa treatments, fitness, state-of-the-art facilities and specialised retail offerings.
Lastly, we also focus on wellness for our colleagues through different activities from Colleague Wellness Week to social impact activities and providing healthier meal options.
As a supporter of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, can you tell us more about how the hotel supports local initiatives?
If you talk about sustainability, it often means different things to different people and I think there is often the misconception that sustainability is mostly linked to the carbon footprint, which is of course an important concern but there is so much more to it.
The Group has recently appointed Torsten von Dullemen as Group Director of Sustainability to underpin the importance of this topic for Mandarin Oriental. However, Mandarin Oriental, Doha is at the forefront of responsible consumption that protects both people and the planet by the sourcing of all vegetables for guests and colleagues from Qatar’s only certified local farm that produces all soil-based organic vegetables, by not using endangered seafood identified by The Group on its menu, and supporting the use of alternative energy.
Colleagues also regularly engage with our communities by supporting social impact initiatives such as Natural Landscape Conservation activities to clean up and combat plastic pollution, most recently on 2 June 2023 in honour of World Environment Day. We have also eliminated single-use plastics, aligning with the Group’s commitment. In support of this initiative, the property uses reusable Nordaq glass bottles for drinking water in guests’ rooms supplied from its in-house bottling plant. And for me, this is really important, is to create awareness and inspire the colleagues and the guest.
For the immediate future we will focus on achieving The Group’s 2023 Goals supplying only cage-free eggs in our operations, and sourcing fair-trade sugar. We are working closely with Green Key and we were one of the first hotels to receive the Green Key award and will continue to work with such organisations to analyse what we do
What do you have planned for the future of the hotel in your new role as GM?
In most cases, hotels have a rigid hierarchical structure and bureaucratic processes that hinder our ability to be innovative. We must break down these barriers and simultaneously empower our colleagues to have a say, enabling them to allocate more time to attending to guests. By doing so, we can gain valuable insights into guests’ true desires and identify additional offerings beyond what we assume they want. Accompanied by this, our pursuit of innovation involves embracing digital transformation, particularly in how we gather and leverage data to enhance our interactions with guests more efficiently.
Talent for hospitality is getting less and less and we are in a unique position here in Doha that we can attract talents from around the world. We now have 60+ nationalities and we need to be an incubator for young talents and provide with training and development programs to maximise their potential and retain them on a group level.
From a business point of view our focus will be largely on the regional traveller and promoting the destination together with Msheireb Downtown Doha and with that the Hotel. We are in a such a unique and strategic location with so much to offer around culture and lifestyle which travellers will be interested to know and experience.
For more information on Mandarin Oriental, Doha, visit mandarinoriental.com or call +974 4008 8811.
Related posts
Thomas Kinsperger Appointed as General Manager of Mandarin Oriental, Doha
Check out Marhaba’s FREE e-Guides for everything you need to know about Qatar.