28 ~ Sunday, August 2, 1992 ~ North Shore News HIGH PROFILES This hotel has a new key HE ACTUALLY does have a house in North Van- couver, but lately he has only been using it to sleep in. By Surj Rattan News Reporter Some might say Amin Karim’s real house is the Lonsdale Quay Hotel, and in a lot of ways it is. Karim is the new general man- ager of the hotel, and for the last three months, as he oversees and implements several new opera- tional changes at the hotel, he has been putting in 15-hour days at the waterfront facility located at the foot of Lonsdale Avenue in North Vancouver City. “There’s no real routine for me. The construction starts here at 7 a.m., so I usually like to be here by that time. For the last two or three months I don’t think I’ve @ NAME: Amin Karim @ AGE: 29 @ OCCUPATION: Lonsdale Quay Hotel general manager © RESIDENCE: North Van- couver @ BORN: Kampala, Uganda @ FAMILY: Wife Narmin left here before 10 p.m. “So breakfast, lunch and dinner is eaten here. My wife has ad- justed real well, and she just comes here right after work which is real nice,’? says Karim, as he takes a few minutes out of his busy day for an interview in the hotel’s new Q Cafe. The Q Cafe is one of the new changes Karim has made at the hotel since taking over as generai manager. It was the site of the former Loops restaurant. He says he is happy with how the new changes have been working out so ar. Another big change was closing down Tug’s Pub and moving the pub’s liquor license to the G Cafe, which has a smail lounge. Karim says Tug’s Pub made a lot of money for the hotel. it also caused a lot of problems. AMIN KARIM, ral fr of the Lonsdale Quay Hotel, says he is looking forward to working with the HEWS photo Dal Lucente of the Lonsdale Quay Market to hefp market both facilities. The Lonsdale Quay Hotel has proved to be a home away from home for Kasim, who has been putting in 15-hour days lately. “It (Fugs) was not an operation that was consistent with this building. We had many occasions where there were fights that would break out because of the clientele it would serve, especially in the evening. *“*The daytime wasn’t a prob- lem. But in the evening it was the teenagers that were going in there. It was a very successful night club, and it did earn us a lot of money. **But our bread and butter is our hotcl. To have hotel guests checking in, and a fight would be Amin Karim - In his What did you do before taking over at the Lonsdale Quay Hotel?: “Pve been doing a number of things. Directly before taking over here, I was the assistant manager. Before that I was in Toronto run- at id Coa: AMIN KARIM ning the trading room for the Royal Bank. “I was a senior trading systems analyst there.’’ How do you. like going from the banking business to the hotel business?: ‘“‘On a much smaller scale it offers similar challenges in terms of the ideas of being able to manage people and achieve your objectives. ‘“*There you were talking multi-million doilars. Here you're not. But the challenges and the frustrations are probably the same.’ What do you like to de to relax when you're not working?: ‘‘We have a boat that we bought. It’s a small boat that seats about four or six people, and that’s instant relaxation. “Whenever we get a chance we're out on the boat. We don’t have to go very far, and often we don’t know where we’re going un- til we get there.”’ What do you think you're doing differently from some of the other hotels in town to market the Lonsdale Quay Hotel?: ‘‘We’re fortunate with our location that we have never had to aggressively market. We’ve had the business come tO us. “We have enough corporate breaking out in the lobby, and to see people yelling and shouting...it just didn’t work. It didn’t make any sense,”* says Karim. The space Tug’s had occupied is now taken up with nine new guest rooms. Karim had considered using the old Tug’s location for a food and beverage service, but he said it made better sense to go with guest rooms. “The analysis was quite simple. We just looked at what we did best and that was hotels. The de- mand on the North Shore was for own words clients on the North Shore: the North Shore News, A&W and BC Rail have all been here so that our Sunday evening to Friday year- round has always been very busy. “Our weekends, other than the summer, fas been an area that has been slow in the past. The tourist sector is what we have to em- phasize for our weekend.”’ Johanne Oisen Thmugh Dan Interior, Johanne presents a f complete shopping experience from furniture § to unique gifts and quality kitchen accessories. “Our store offers such fine lines as Kosta Boda, lirvala, and Arabia of Finland. We also have a. complen: fine of cookware, including Cuisinart, lagottina, Sigg, and Coppereane. Remember us J for exciting acrylic lines for patio and boaters.” j A bridal registry is also available. For those who appreciate the difference. Dan interiors South 922-1181 hotels and hotel rooms.”’ Loops restaurant was also clos- ed, and the hotel’s management staff decided a smaller food and beverage outlet would serve its needs better. Karim says the hotel’s Water- front Bistro continues to be a suc- cessful operation. “We've noticed a decreaze in drinking with all the advertising against liquor, and we felt we needed to look at the bigger pic- ture. Expanding food and bever- age didn’t make sense, so we cut down from about 360 seats to about 130'seats. “*At the start it was quite hard for us to accept that, but our analysis was that it’s nicer to have 122 seats filled all the time than a number of empty seats,’ says Karim. He adds that another major move for the hotel is to amalgamate its operations with the Lonsdale Quay Market, some- thing Karim says has not been the case since the hotel opened its doors six years ago. Both the hotel znd the market are also considering launching joint advertising campaigns. “‘There’s been a tendency for the hotel, the bistro, Tug’s and Loops to be very separate from the market. It didn’t help them, and it doesn’t help us. The rela- tionship that I have now with the market is just fantastic. “If you want to stay at this hotel, what I want to sell you about this complex is not a bed and a TV but the entire complex, because it is so unique. “*To sell the market side of it as much as I’m selling the hotel is very important to us.” Woburn International Academy of British Columbia * SMALL CLASSES © GRADES 612 ® INDIVIDUALIZED PROGRAMS UNIQUE FEATURES: S traditional approach, well-balanced curriculum and extensive’ fm recreational programme. Small class sizes & individual attention § foster achievement, build self-confidence. Language programme in- Hi cludes French Immersion for Grades 6 to 9. 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