"Colombia is the best lot in the world"

by Natalia Ospina Vélez
"To the extent that we are innovative, we will compete better with the current supply, which is growing rapidly." That conclusion has been reached by the Colombian Fernando Sánchez Paredes, president of the Blue Doors Hotels hotel chain, a company that operates different hotels in the cities of Bogotá and Santa Marta.

With nearly 25 years of experience in the hospitality industry of his country, this businessman has had under his responsibility the management of the Country Club of Barranquilla. He also led the development of five hotels in Colombia: Hotel Bogotá Royal in 1986, Hotel La Bohême in 1988, Hotel Hacienda Royal in 1988, the Lugano Imperial Suites in 1994 and  Suites 101 Park House in 1996.

During more than a decade of working with the Royal Hotels, Sánchez was general manager of the Bogotá Royal Hotel and later, president of the entire organization. "It was like a special attraction for the service industry, which later became permanent for me.". this is how this industrial engineer by profession explained his arrival in the hospitality industry.

Developing your own brand

After his experience operating some hotels in Colombia, Sánchez decided to embark on his path as an independent hotelier. The experience gained previously gave him the security to start with his own chain: Blue Doors Hotels. Through it, this entrepreneur has dedicated himself to developing modern hotel concepts, different from the conventional one that does not compete with international hospitality or that of large chains.

"Recently, what we have done with the Blue Doors chain is the opening of the Hotel 104 Art Suites, the first art and design hotel to be made in the country," he said.  The latter, located in the boutique hotel segment, has 20 suites, each decorated with creations by different Colombian plastic artists. among them paintings, photographs, graffiti and paintings.

"This hotel is aimed at young professionals who no longer want to be in branded hotels but with a special design. For the creation of this hotel a contest was made with more than 50 artists, each one had a space to develop their proposal: the suites, the lobby, the bar. Finally, a group of experts selected the 25 most representative works," he explained.

Ready for international competition

Being manager of the construction project of what is now the World Trade Center in Bogotá, the Colombian capital, also has its share of responsibility in Sánchez's hotel career.  "Within that project there was a hotel, I did the feasibility study, I sat down with the architects to work on the design, then I had to study hospitality and there I began to like the subject more," he recalled.  

Studying outside his native Colombia was one of the main motivations that this businessman had to invest in the development of hotels. Much of the benefits that he discovered in the Colombian hotel industry are due to the Europeans who opened the panorama in this market.

"I had the opportunity to study in Europe a master's degree in finance and economic planning at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. There, I understood how the tourism industry should be the engine of regional development in most countries," he said.
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Growing up in adversity

Once he returns to Colombia, Fernando Sanchez must face a path full of ups and downs throughout his career in the hospitality industry. However, among the most significant achievements this businessman highlights the location a few years ago of the Hotel Bogotá Royal as the number one in the country.

Achieving that the Hotel 101 Park House was the first in Colombia to achieve ISO 9001 certification and rated as five stars, follows it in the list of good results of more than two decades of work in the Colombian market.

Despite the good results, competing in the industry of his country was not an easy task for Fernando, since managing to position himself and develop differential values has been fundamental in each of his projects. Traveling to different countries to learn about new trends in the world's hospitality industry and anticipate them is the strategy of this entrepreneur.

Occupying the place he has today in the Colombian industry has forced him to face great challenges. Among them Sánchez remembers the one lived in 1996. In that year, Colombia was going through a significant economic depression and had problems with the U.S. market. "The challenge was to survive in an adverse economy where supply doubled and demand did not grow. What we did was develop a new product: suites," he said.

An industry with a future

"Colombia is the best lot in the world, it has the best location. If you take the world map and say where I want to be located, you hardly find a better location than Colombia. Close to all countries, we have all the natural attractions to attract tourism, we suffered from the problem of security but we are already dominating it.", that according to Sánchez is the panorama of the hospitality industry in Colombia.

Given this description, Fernando predicts for the national market an important growth that will lead this South American country to catch up with the other nations of the world. "We will achieve success through cooperation and partnership with others. Obviously, you have to know how to surround yourself very well, you have to pressure the universities where hoteliers are trained to improve quality and deliver a good raw material, although we must clarify that we already have a good quality.", he concluded.