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showed him out. The site, BA said, was too small. Arora spent the next 20 months getting planning permission anyway, then went back. This time they told him he had no track record. He told them he would build something they couldn’ t use and would never sell them the land. Then he left.“ Even my wife and my bank director thought I was silly. They told me to sell the land and go lie on a beach,” he says. Until BA called the next day. The hotel was built, and with it the model that has underpinned everything since – Arora Group is a builder of hotels as much as it is an owner of them. That construction capability, developed from the very first project, gives Arora control over cost and quality that most operators don’ t have; its very first hotel opened three days early and under budget.“ My project manager at the time told me he’ d never had a client turn up on site every single day, and know everyone involved in building,” he says.“ But that’ s me. I never give up. It’ s a challenge but I want to make a difference.”
Keeping the culture The group’ s growth has been steady rather than sudden, which suits Arora’ s way of thinking. His head of housekeeping told him early on that once he had more than two or three hotels, the family feeling would go.“ I told her: the day we become corporate is the day I’ ll stop growing,” he recalls. Even now he still visits every hotel for the quarterly staff awards, insisting that his teams use his first name. Some of the team who joined near the beginning are
I never give up. It’ s a challenge but I want to make a difference
Surinder Arora Founder & Chairman Arora Group
still there and the close relationships he carved with banks that have supported the journey have held for as many as 20 years.“ You have to create trust and respect,” he says.“ It doesn’ t matter how much money or success you have, those relationships that have brought you through thick and thin can’ t be bought, certainly not if you’ re driven by ego. You clap with both hands and make your team your family.” As with so many industries, the financial crisis of 2008 tested that trust. Arora is open about how bad it got— one night during the financial crisis he was, in his own words,‘ crying so much you could have squeezed water out of his pillowcase’.“ But the next morning I woke up and said: Surinder, you’ re not going to be a chicken,” he says.“ You’ ve got 1,800 family members who have mortgages to pay. Real winners are the ones down in the valleys who push themselves back up.” Much of Arora’ s resilience traces back to his mother, who shaped how he thinks about money and reputation alike.“ She taught me: money comes and goes.
148 May 2026