I wanted to share with you that we had both town-hall meetings yesterday, both in Banyan Tree Al Wadi and Banyan Tree RAK Beach. The morning one was held in Al Wadi with over 220 participants and the afternoon one at the Beach with 70 participants.
Attending the meeting, aside from myself, was Mr. Ibrahim Barhout (Area VP Ritz Carlton Middle East / Africa) and Mr. Avinash Menon (Area Director HR Ritz Carlton Middle East / Africa). No representative of the respective owning companies was present.
I had shared the official statement from ourselves and also informed the team the points highlighted by Des in his correspondence with me. Ritz team shared that they would come on site as of next week and would be assessing all associates for potential future employment as of then. They portrayed themselves in a manner that they would like to potentially take over as many of the existing team as possible. No Q&A was held yesterday on request of owning companies.
All in all the news was taken on board in a constructive manner. It put, finally, 6 months of rumor to rest.