Quest to enter hotel sector
The evolution of Quest Apartment Hotels is set to continue with the Australian company revealing it is set to make a play at the hotel sector. Until mid-last year, the business operated as Quest Serviced Apartments, specialising wholly in the “home and office away from home” sector. The repositioning and inclusion of ‘Hotels’ in the title was a giveaway of the future strategy. Chief executive officer Zed Sanjana confirmed the move last month in a media release when welcoming Cameron Stewart to the position of Director Group Operations. Stewart has fine pedigree in the hotel division. The executive has been managing director, Australia and New Zealand for Silverneedle Hospitality Group since December last year. Before which he was vice president – Hotel Operations for four years and director of operations for more than three years when the business was known as Constellation Hotel Group until 2011. At Silverneedle, Stewart was in charge of leadership, management, and growth of seven brands, spanning regionally based franchised models to full service hotels at 40+ locations. Quest was tight-lipped on specific details of the new hotel venture at travelbulletin’s time of print, only stating that Stewart has been recruited “to develop and launch its new hotel concept, which will fill a gap in the hotel marketplace between the traditional no frills ‘select service’ category and the emerging ‘millennial’ hotels category”. On paper Stewart fits the bill to a tee. His Linkedin profile boasts his achievements including “the re-development and subsequent launch of arguably Australia’s most technologically advanced full service, 304 room, 4.5 star NEXT Hotel Brisbane”. He was also a key contributor in the roll out of the Sage Hotels brand which has four locations in Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Wollongong. “We are extremely fortunate to have someone with Cameron’s background and industry experience to guide the development of the new hotel concept,” Sanjana said. “Cameron will be an invaluable addition to the team and I can’t wait to show the industry what we’ve been working on, an announcement which will be made later in 2016.”
Stewart has been recruited ‘to develop and launch Quest’s new hotel concept’