‘We need to open our hearts’
Brown Hotels founder and co-owner speaks out about hosting evacuees in wartime.
“Hosting evacuees is not like hosting regular guests,” says Leon Avigad, founder of the Brown Hotels Group in Israel. “They are families that have been traumatized, and we need to be there for them. They are not regular guests.”
On Sunday, October 8, the day after the Hamas terrorist massacre in Israel’s South, the group, which includes 25 hotels in Tel Aviv, Eilat, and Jerusalem, closed all of its hotels for a week. “Toward the end of that week,” says Avigad, “we understood we had to be flexible. The Brown hotels in Tel Aviv began hosting hospital personnel in between shifts at no cost. “We opened our hotels at the beginning for medical staff, when no one was even speaking about evacuations.”
Avigad says that the Brown Hotels contacted local municipalities in cities such as Ashkelon and Sderot, offering their rooms to residents, even before the National Emergency Authority began sending evacuees to the Brown hotels.
Brown Hotels staff immediately shifted into entertainment mode, says Avigad, bringing in entertainers to boost the spirits of their special guests, offering free hairdressing services, and ensuring that guests were able to have their laundry needs met. “We are doing beautiful work with them,” he says.
The issue, continues Avigad, is that, to date, the government has not taken charge, and no one knows who will cover their costs. “We just need to open our hearts and our pockets, and hopefully, at a certain point, the government will reimburse us.”
Most of the evacuees elected to go to the Brown hotels in Eilat, says Avigad. Tel Aviv was the second-favored destination on the Brown list, with Jerusalem running third. The Brown Hotels Group is known as a boutique collection of hotels and has had to make adjustments to absorb the many families that have been evacuated from the Negev and Israel’s North.
“We had to make all of our hotels kosher, and even though some are boutique hotels, we have had to provide full board.” Chuckling, he adds that many of the Brown Hotel Group’s sophisticated nightclubs and bars are now hosting pre-teens for soft drinks and children’s entertainment as part of the kids’ clubs that the hotels have organized for their special guests. “It is part of what we do as hoteliers,” he says.
Avigad points out that recent events in the past three years have had a negative effect on the local hotel industry, including the corona pandemic, the Ukraine-Russia war, and the interest-rate crisis, which affected demand from Germany and the United Kingdom.
He adds that the protests against the government in the summer also harmed tourism in Tel Aviv. “No one wanted to spend the weekend in Tel Aviv because of the demonstrations,” he says.
In Avigad’s view, the Israeli government needs to bear this history in mind. “The government needs to remember that the hospitality industry suffered in the last three years. They have to provide us with flexible ways to employ team members. Taking unpaid leave (Halat) is very rigid, but what happens if we need to lower the capacity and not zero it completely?” Avigad suggests that banks can also be helpful, by extending payment deadlines without charging interest.
Unlike the largest hotels in Israel, many of whom have clubs for children, offer full board, and have sufficient resources to weather the downturn, medium and smaller hotel groups in Israel are having difficulty during this time. Avigad adds that even after the war is over, it will take time – perhaps a year or more – for tourists to return in full force.
Despite the difficulties, he says that the staff at the Brown hotels have made a huge difference in helping the evacuees staying in their hotels. “I am proud of our teams, and I have great appreciation for the staff who has opened their hearts,” says Avigad. “We had to send people on unpaid leave, and they still want to volunteer. They bring toys and clothes and things for kids.
“All the hotels have a full daily schedule of entertainment. It is beautiful to see all the hotel lobbies packed with singers and donations. It is a beautiful example of Kol Yisrael Haverim (‘All Israel is united’). I am really proud of it.”
The story was written in cooperation with Brown Hotels.
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