umeirah Group, the Dubai-based luxury hospitality company and a member of Dubai Holding, has appointed Stephan Schüpbach as vice president - operations.

In his new role, he will be responsible for overseeing the performance of Jumeirah’s owned hotels in Dubai, managed hotels in Asia Pacific, the global wellness brand Talise and leading the pre-opening preparations for Jumeirah’s next phase of expansion in Asia. He will report to Jumeirah group CEO operations Nicholas Clayton.

Since 2010 Schüpbach has been general manager of Jumeirah Zabeel Saray, the Ottoman inspired resort on Palm Jumeirah. He led the pre-opening team to a successful hotel launch in March 2011 and by 2012 the property was outperforming its competitive set and consistently hitting highs in its customer satisfaction ratings.

During his tenure at Jumeirah Zabeel Saray, the property received over 50 awards which recognised the hotel, spa, restaurants, TripAdvisor performance, colleagues and sustainability. In addition, the hotel recently won the Dubai Quality Award and Schüpbach received the ‘Swiss Star Abroad Award’ by Gault Millau-Michelin for 2014.

Schüpbach joined Jumeirah in 2006 as hotel manager at Jumeirah Emirates Towers, then as general manager for Al Qasr and Dar Al Masyaf in Madinat Jumeirah. Before that he was resident manager at One & Only Maldives at Reethi Rah and worked for Ritz-Carlton as executive chef in Wolfsburg, Germany and San Juan, Puerto Rico. He also spent time in Colorado, US, as part of the pre-opening team for the Ritz-Carlton, Bachelor Gulch Colorado and became executive assistant manager for food and beverage operations. – TradeArabia News Service