The Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi has announced the appointment of Franck LaFourcade as the property's general manager.
LaFourcade had previously GMed the hotel from 2000 to 2005, after which he had spent nine years in China, managing Sofitel properties in Shanghai as a general manager and as an area general manager.
The hotel he has inherited from the previous general manager, Kai Speth, is good deal larger than the hotel he left in 2005, with 364 rooms in 2013 to the 232 rooms available in 2005.
Additionally, the property has been reimagined as Sofitel's first Legend hotel, which includes a series of moves that highlights its wartime heritage, a new Angelina dining experience and a relaunched Bamboo Bar.
The 364-room hotel was completely renovated in June 2009. Its historic Metropole Wing features suites named for Charlie Chaplin, Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene, each of whom stayed at the Metropole during his time in colonial Indochina. The hotel’s restaurants include Spices Garden (Vietnamese), Le Beaulieu (French) and Angelina (Italian). Le Spa du Metropole opened in late 2009 and immediately set a new standard for nostalgic elegance in Vietnam.
“Many people could look at the Metropole today and say, ‘Voilà, there’s no more to do,’” said LaFourcade. “But for a hotelier, the glass is always half full. We have endless opportunities in store, and a few surprises, too, as we work to build on the able accomplishments of my predecessors.”
A French national, LaFourcade is a 1980 graduate of the prestigious Lausanne Hotel School in Switzerland, who relocated to Asia in 1990. He assumed his first stint as a general manager in Phnom Penh in 1993, and has moved on through the years to Singapore, Pusan (Korea) and Jakarta before his time in Hanoi and his long run in Shanghai.
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