Minor Hotels has appointed Alejandro Bernabé as group director, Avani Hotels & Resorts.

With over 20 years of global hospitality experience, Bernabé has an impressive management track record, along with years of practical operational and food and beverage experience in both city hotels and resort properties and is ideally qualified to lead Minor Hotels’ most youthful and contemporary brand.

Bernabé’s mandate is to drive performance of Avani properties in terms of sales, distribution, marketing, PR, brand standards and guest experiences.

He started his career in Switzerland, followed by South Africa, France and Sri Lanka, before joining Kempinski in 1998 as pre-opening food and beverage manager at the Kempinski Hotel Plaza in Jakarta.

Staying with Kempinski, for the next 16 years, Bernabé continued in at the Grand Hotel Europe in St Petersburg, then at the Çırağan Palace Hotel Kempinski in Istanbul.

He was soon promoted to resident manager in his native Spain, then general manager in Kempinski properties in Malta, Kuwait and Jordan.

Bernabé led Kempinski Hotel Mall of the Emirates in Dubai to increasingly high levels of performance and quality standards and he was then transferred to manage the Siam Kempinski Hotel in Bangkok.

There he reaffirmed the hotel’s strong reputation as one of the city’s most important leisure and culinary destinations.

Bernabé commented: “I am delighted to join the team and to have the opportunity to take the vibrant Avani brand to the next level across all areas of the business.

“Avani is redefining the lifestyle space in hospitality.

“Our guests want to explore the cities where they stay.

“They want honest food.

“They combine business and leisure travel and want to connect with other guests and feel part of a community.”