Aron Harilela, PhD, has the perfect pedigree for overseeing a hotel empire
AT THE OPENING ceremony of the Holiday Inn Golden Mile in 1975, four-year-old Aron Harilela stood in for his father Hari, the present-day patriarch of Hong Kong's most prominent Indian family. Aron's grandmother had just passed away, and his father was in mourning.
The opening was young Aron's first executive assignment for Harilela Hotels, the hotels and property arm of the privately held Harilela Group. In the decades since its Golden Mile flagship opened at 50 Nathan Road, Harilela Hotels has grown to encompass 10 operations in Bangkok, London, Macau (where it has a 10 per cent interest in the Westin Resort), Montreal, Penang, Singapore and Sydney.
Now 34 and the only son of Hong Kong's most famous Indian businessman, who also has five daughters, Mr Harilela oversees operations at six of his father's hotels, as well as the group's acquisition activities.
'My father's intention was always to get into hotels and real estate back then,' he remembers. '[The family] started off in tailoring but we always wanted to get into hotels. My father's philosophy has always been prime cities, prime locations.'
The Harilelas' hotels business was slow to get started, however. It took years for Mr Harilela's father to buy out reluctant partners in the Golden Mile project, who had been spooked by the 1967 riots. Then there was the challenge of finding an experienced operating partner.