THE LAUNCH OF THE FIRST HOTEL
Alfred Pisani recalls how his wife was pregnant and ex-
pecting the child around April, so he decided to slate
the launch of the hotel to June. Out of sheer coin-
cidence, the Duke of Edinburgh was also planning
to visit Malta around June, so Alfred tried to use his
network to determine whether it would be possible for
The Duke to be present on the day. He describes the
plan in hindsight as “ambitious” and it initially did not
seem to be leading anywhere. So much so, that around
mid-May invitations were issued to a number of partic-
ipants for the launch of the hotel marked for the 10th
of June. Incredibly enough, after about five days from
sending the invitations, Alfred received confirmation
that the Duke of Edinburgh would be available for the
launch on the 11th June. This led to a revision of plans,
and a re-issuing of the invites. At this point, he was
also approached by a movie company which was solicit-
ing an invitation for a certain Roger Moore, who hap-
pened to be in Malta for the filming of a movie. Alfred
shows with pride the photos associated with the launch
of the hotel, whose cast came to present some incred-
ible contributors. The hotel opened on June 1968,
with the project having been completed within a pe-
riod of two years and six months. Suddenly, and with-
in a very short order, Corinthia was employing over
a hundred employees. During the same year, the UK
Sterling depreciated and credit limits for expenses on
travel in all countries with exceptions (which included
Malta) were set. Tourism from the United Kingdom
picked up significantly. And the business flourished.
In many ways, the value ascribed to the human
resources element from the outset of the oper-
ation represented a key differentiating factor
which allowed the organisation to achieve its
quality standards.
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Issue 03
a younger Alfred Pisani accompanied by the
Duke of Edinburgh at the launch of his first hotel
GOING INTERNATIONAL
Corinthia started growing, but the company also
faced its ups and downs. In 1972, Mintoff was elect-
ed Prime Minister and he demanded from the British
eight times over what they were paying for the base.
This growing tension between the two countries had
its toll as the island experienced a significant drop in
inbound tourism.
Eventually, the country started establishing links with
Libya and Corinthia identified partners for the lo-
cal venture. When Ghaddafi rose to power, this cre-
ated new opportunities for Corinthia in industrial
catering, serving thousands of meals a day to the oil
companies. This provided the revenue for Corinthia
to develop more hotels, initially in Malta, and sub-
sequently overseas. With each new hotel, the brand
Corinthia was created, which today is an internation-
ally recognised flag, attracting respect. Alfred recalls
how they set up a second, a third and a fourth as “we
kept doing them ourselves”. Most other hotel opera-
tions were bringing in management companies to set
up the operations, but this was costly, and did not of-
ten meet the end product expectations being set.
“Building it yourself is a hard road, but we persisted
and developed a highly efficient management com-
pany”. The Management Company is now also pro-
viding services to third parties, and Alfred believes
that eventually this will outgrow the holding compa-
ny of the owned properties. Corinthia now owns and
HOSPITALITY MALTA