The Radisson’s director of sales and marketing Ann Olalo, this writer, GM Laurent Boisdron and hotel manager Fabien Martinez
WINE Down Wednesday at the Radisson Blu Cebu meant meeting the new guard at the hotel last April 20 at the lobby lounge. While it was humid and sultry outside, this was a haven of coolness and fun.
The new general manager is a Frenchman, suave and urbane. He has been in the profession for 22 years. In Europe Laurent Boisdron has been assigned in Barcelona, Paris London and Brussels.
In North America he workd in Chicago, Boston, and Miami; and in the Middle East, in Dubai. Before his assignment to Cebu he was based in Minneapolis handling corporate responsibilities for the Carlson Rezidor Worldwide head office. The Radisson is part of it.
Fabien Martinez, also French, is the Radisson Blu Cebu’s new hotel manager. He also has 22 years of hotel experience, with accent on the culinary aspect. No stranger to Cebu, in 2001 he was executive sous chef at the Shangri-La in Mactan.
Before coming to Cebu in 2016 Fabien was with the Sheraton in Shanghai, China. Laurent and Fabien make a very good, and dynamic, team. They are full of exciting and new ideas which they will implement in the coming months.
It was a convivial gathering, the better to get everyone present exchange pleasantres and impressions, with a good representation from media, and the hotel’s corporate clients.
Of course, there were some special people, like Teresin Mendezona who came with Irma Atillo. Then arrived Amparito Lhuillier, from the Josie Natori fashion event in Rustan’s.
She and Laurent Boisdron hit it off quite well from the start.
He is a member of La Chaine des Rotisseurs and in the various hotels he has been connected had organized some memorable dinners.
He heard Amparito speaking in Spanish; as it turned out, he is quite fluent in Spanish himself. Whereupon he and Fabien Martinez were invited to a meeting of Amigos de España of which Amparito is president.