Ian Ciappara has been appointed General Manager at W London Leicester Square
W London has announced two major appointments following the loss of its general manager and executive chef within eight months of the opening of the 192-bedroom hotel in Leicester Square. Ian Ciappara has taken over as the hotel's general manager following the departure of Kevin Rockey, who has rejoined the Morgans Hotel Group as general manager of the Sanderson hotel. Prior to joining W London - four months before the hotel's opening in February - Rockey had been general hotel manager at St Martins Lane, sister hotel to the Sanderson. He originally joined the Morgans Hotel Group in 2000 as spa membership manager at the Sanderson. Ciappara joins W London from Costa Navarino in Greece, where he was complex director of sales and marketing and was responsible for two hotels - the Westin Costa Navarino and the Romanos, a Luxury Collection Resort. Both hotels, like W London, are operated by Starwood Hotels & Resorts. Maltese-born Ciappara began his career with Starwood in 1998 as director of sales and marketing at the Westin Dragonara Resort in Malta. He studied in the UK, achieving a BSc in hotel and catering management from the Dorset Institute for Higher Education and a masters in international tourism marketing from the University of Surrey.
