“Hospitality makes people feel welcome” – Style

Just 20 years ago, in the very place where Iniala Beach House is now located, on Natai Beach on the coast of the Andaman Sea, Mark Weingard’s house was located. It stood just a few meters from the surf line and was swept away by the tsunami that hit Phuket in December 2004. Mark survived that tragedy – and not only survived, but decided to create a new oasis of beach holidays on the site of the destroyed house. This is how a successful British financier turned into an aspiring hotelier, and then a philanthropist. His first hotel, Iniala Beach House, opened in Phuket in 2014. The resort included three villas, a penthouse and two residences. All the rooms turned out to be different, with a unique design – something like an original art installation. And this is not surprising: after all, world-famous professionals worked on the design – the Campana brothers, Jaime Ayon, Joseph Walsh, Autoban studio.

How is Iniala Beach House different from other hotels?

I love the world of hospitality very much, but I am dead tired of hotels in the traditional sense of the word. Everyone copies everyone else. Therefore, I decided to offer guests an interesting design, modern art, and place a bed in the center of each room – this is, after all, a bedroom in the first place. Regular beds are the most boring thing in the world, so every bed at Iniala Beach House is original and different from the others. In the penthouse it grows straight out of the carpet; in Villa Siam it is suspended from the ceiling on woven bamboo stems. In the “Carpenter’s Bedroom” (that’s the name of one of the suites), the bed frame looks like writhing ribbons of ash wood. In this way, we invite the guest to experience his own individual emotional experience.

What is hospitality anyway?

This is service, service and more service. This is the most difficult thing. I can draw you pictures of beautiful rooms with panoramic views of the ocean, show you beautifully served food – but the service cannot be touched or explained, only felt. On average, people work 48 weeks a year, and those 4 weeks that they have for vacation should be special. And our task is to do everything so that people leaving Iniala Beach House feel that they spent the best time of their lives here.

How to turn hospitality into a business?

Iniala Beach House has never been a good business, but it has been the best holiday destination for everyone I know. This is a very small hotel – Iniala Beach House has only 12 rooms, which were worked on by – just think about it – 10 designers! I wouldn’t advise anyone to use this business model. For comparison, only 3-4 designers worked on the design of our hotel in Malta (Iniala Harbor House opened in Valletta in 2021 – editor’s note). It currently has 23 rooms, and we will soon expand to 50 rooms – this is the ideal number of rooms for a boutique hotel. At this level, you can operate profitably while still providing guests with a very high level of personalized service. In hotels with 100 rooms this is no longer possible. Here in Phuket we have only 12 rooms, so it’s very easy to create a feeling of a warm, welcoming welcome – the guests (and there are no more than 20 people at a time) immediately feel it. But no matter how much I would like to, I’m unlikely to be able to repeat this concept anywhere else: economically it’s not reasonable (laughs). But I will never sell this business in Phuket. This is the DNA of my business. This is the best beach, the best service, the best place!

Probably because it’s Thailand? Is hospitality in people’s blood here?

Not everyone has it. There are many other Thai hotels where the service is not the same. On the other hand, Thailand has a lot of charm and charm, more than many other places in the world. We combine the charm of Thailand and European efficiency. Thais often smile, but for us it is even more, almost a passion, although in general people living in Phuket are quiet and calm. At Iniala we manage to build a balance: the staff is always nearby and at the same time invisible, helping with every little thing, but doing it unobtrusively.

What do you personally pay attention to in hotels?

I always notice when the staff doesn’t say hello if no one greets me. The first thing in hospitality is greeting, that’s where it all starts. Here at Iniala you are greeted by all the staff when you arrive. And even in the evening there is always someone at the entrance to greet the returning guest. We try to give our guests a warm, welcoming welcome – this makes people feel welcome. Here in Thailand, this is fully realized, and we are taking our spirit of hospitality to other countries – to Malta, where the Iniala Harbor House city hotel is open, to Dubai, where, hopefully, in a few years a new location will appear.

Tell us about your worst hotel experience.

Here are just a couple of examples. In one hotel, the checkout was at noon, and exactly at that time the electricity in the room was completely cut off. I asked if there was an accident, and in response I heard that there was no accident, your time had just run out and it was time to leave the premises. And in Marrakesh, the hotel staff once gave me a bottle of wine. I lived alone and went to dinner at the hotel restaurant, taking this bottle with me. However, it turned out that you cannot bring your own drinks to the restaurant. They even offered to serve me dinner in my room so I could drink my wine there. It was all very unpleasant, and a wonderful surprise turned into a terrible disappointment.

At what point after the tsunami did you decide not just to rebuild your home, but to create something more?

This happened much later, in 2008, when I sold my financial technology business. I worked in trading and was an excellent financier, but I had to reinvent myself and abruptly changed my occupation. Getting started was difficult – Thailand is not the easiest place for a foreigner to build a business, mainly due to the political situation in the past. It’s simpler in Malta: society is much more open to foreigners. But working with people here in Thailand is a real pleasure. We have a wonderful team, and most of the employees have been working in the company since its founding, i.e. almost 10 years.

What’s in your immediate plans?

We have the world’s best beach hotel in Phuket, we have a city hotel in Malta, and this is the only luxury hotel in this country. Since the demand in this segment is high, perhaps we will open a couple more hotels in the center of Valletta. I hope to open in Dubai in a few years – it will be a city hotel on the beach, combining the best of both formats. But before the hotel there will be a restaurant – now we are looking for the right place for it. By the way, at the very end of last year, the Aulis restaurant appeared at our resort in Phuket in the chef’s table format for 15 guests with an excellent tasting menu.

Tell us about your charitable projects.

My participation in charity is connected with the tragic events of my life. But in any, even the most difficult negative situation, you need to look for a point of support and think positively. I miraculously survived the attack on the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, and after this tragedy I made my first large donation. My fiancée died in a terrorist attack in Bali in 2002, and again I survived, incredibly. Then I realized even more strongly that I had to change something in my life – this is how the Annika Foundation was born. Then the tsunami happened, which took thousands of lives, but not mine. Today, the Inspirasia Foundation helps finance social, medical and educational programs in Thailand, Burma, and Indonesia. My first goal is to help, and my second, no less important, is to inspire people to change the world for the better and help others, including children.

Interviewed by Nina Spiridonova