Business View Magazine | September 2022

187 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 9, ISSUE 9 ALA MOANA HOTEL recent addition of Dada Salon and Café, voted the number one salon in Honolulu, the hotel has a variety of food & beverage options also including Starbucks and Café 410. Ala Moana Hotel is also looking forward to the opening of the iconic bar and restaurant Pint + Jigger, a Hawaiian culinary and cocktail favorite. “Those are some of our key partners, and I think that really enhances the product that our guests can enjoy when staying here at the hotel,” says Barnard. “It gives you everything. You’ve got the hotel, the shopping center just across the road, great restaurants, great salon, great bar, beautiful pool area. You really don’t need to go anywhere else once you are here.” Officially known as Ala Moana Hotel by Mantra, the hotel is part of Accor, a global company with over 5,300 hotels around the world. With a vast range of offerings in its portfolio, including the Mantra brand, Accor has an overall vision for their team members. As Barnard describes, “We want our team to feel valued – that’s really our promise. When I say feel valued, I mean they feel valued coming to work, they are looked after in the workplace, there’s opportunities for growth, there’s opportunities for learning. These are all things that we promote. I believe that the company really cares. There’s a lot of time and investment spent in the development of people and giving them the tools that they need to do their job.” Part of this investment includes Accor Academy, a training institute offering both online and in-person learning opportunities, which are open to all of the hotel’s team members. Employing approximately 350 people, Barnard reports that during COVID, staffing issues have been one of the challenges Ala Moana Hotel has faced. He explains, “We went from a period of no business in hotels, where it was very hard to give staff hours, to bouncing back very quickly. When you look across the tourism industry as a whole and certainly hotels, restaurants, and bars, there’s now more of a challenge to actually find people to work. Whereas, previously, we were finding it