Experienced Middle East hotelier Mr. El Saarany appointed to Safir team

Maagid El Saarany has been named as general manager of the new Safir Deira Hotel in Dubai. The 154-room boutique-style hotel is located on Muraqqabat Street, in the heart of the bustling downtown shopping and business district of the city.

The hotel is the first UAE property for the Kuwait-based Safir International Hotel Management, which operates 32 hotels in seven countries in North Africa and the Middle East. El Saarany will be combining his role as general manager for the new hotel with his role as regional consultant for the group.

Joining Safir from Malta-based Corinthia Hotels, where he was responsible for the launch of two new five-star properties in Tunisia, El Saarany is entering his 26th year in the hotel industry.

Of his move to Dubai, he says he is looking forward to the challenge of adding a new hotel group to the emirate’s prestigious roll-call of global names.

“There is still huge potential here with the ongoing expansion of tourism and commerce. Safir is a new name to the UAE, but the group has extensive experience operating hotels around the region and in North Africa – and we look forward to making our mark in Dubai.”

The five-star standard hotel will have its ‘soft’ opening in October, and El Saarany acknowledged that pricing and service will be the keys to success. He said value-added rates combined with five-star standard service will be a great draw for the hotel in its opening months.

After two years as deputy general manager at Le Meridien Pyramids, Cairo in the early 1990s, he returned in January 1995 for a four-year stint as general manager when he implemented ISO 9002 quality standards, leading the hotel to become the first outside the UK to gain this BSI certification.

The British-born El Saarany then moved to Leeds in the UK as general manager for Le Meridien there, and has also worked at several large London hotels including the Strand Palace, Hotel Russell, Le Meridien Excelsior and the Cumberland. 

He started his career in the hotel industry in London at the Mayfair Inter-Continental with Grand Metropolitan Hotels, after gaining a degree in hospitality management from the Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen in Scotland, and an MA in quality management at Wolverhampton University, England.