What would you do if you had £79 million? Yeoh Siew Hoon knows what she wouldn't do.

What would you do if you suddenly won £79 million? Buy a hotel company? Buy a hotel?

Well, I wouldn't.

Imagine. If you bought a hotel company – like Starwood has with Le Meridien and now Raffles International – think about all the headaches and heartaches you would have managing it. (Forget Starwood, think Star Wars. Let's hope Darth Vader does not triumph in this saga.)

Think about all the different general managers you would have to deal with, everyone with their own idiosyncracies and cultural peculiarities. Think about all the staff you would have to sack. Think about all the owners you would have to be nice to.

And if you were to buy your dream hotel and run it, I bet you it would very quickly turn into a nightmare. Because now, you would have to worry about every aspect of it because you, yes, you now own the damn thing, every brick and mortar of it.

At least now if you are a general manager, you can just write up a report, saying, "It needs refurbishment so that it is in keeping with our brand integrity."

Yet I know many general managers who, when I ask them ‘what's your dream', say, "I want to run my own little place by the sea, bay, hills …"

Nature seems to feature strongly in general managers' dreams somehow.

That, and masochism.

You would think they would have had enough of picking up after other people's messes but no, it seems they can't live without it, even in their retirement.

Consider the number of former hotel CEOs who, after they retire, return to the industry in some form or other – the most recent reincarnation being that of Hortz Schulze, former Ritz-Carlton chief, who has launched a new luxury brand called Solis Hotels & Resorts.

Schulze, 64, says Solis will stand apart from other luxury brands by focusing on service and reliability – how that is different, I don't know – but he says, "We're not centering on design or architecture. There will be no defects and no mistakes. Keys will fit. It'll be immaculate. We will wash your bedsheets every day."

I like the idea of the clean bedsheets.

Anyway, Schulze is not the subject of this column. Dolores McNamara is.

No, she isn't a hotelier – at least not yet – but she could end up becoming the biggest hotel owner in the world if she decided to spend all her money buying up hotels.

In case you haven't read, Dolores is the Irish woman who's won Europe's biggest jackpot ever – £79,881,799.

Anyway, I feel sorry for Dolores.

The night she found out she had the winning ticket, she had to be whisked away into hiding. Her refuge: A neighbourhood hotel.

I wonder if she will buy it and from there, launch a new luxury chain called D.

I know a few former hotel chiefs who would love to run it for her.



The SHY Report
A regular column on news, trends and issues in the hospitality industry by one of Asia's most respected travel editors and commentators, Yeoh Siew Hoon.

Siew Hoon, who has covered the tourism industry in Asia/Pacific for the past 20 years, runs SHY Ventures Pte Ltd. Her company's mission is "Content, Communication, Connection".

She is a writer, speaker, facilitator, trainer and events producer. She is also an author, having published "Around Asia In 1 Hr: Tales of Condoms, Chillies & Curries". Her motto is ‘free to do, and be'.

Contacts: Tel: 65-63424934, Mobile: 65-96801460

Check out Siew Hoon's new website, www.shy-connection.com, which features a newly-launched e-zine with a difference.