Full Video: Hilton CEO at Skift Global Forum East 2022

Hilton CEO Christopher Nassetta considers himself amazed at level of growth he's seen in the Middle East's hotel industry during his roughly 40-year career. Nassetta described the commitment officials in the region have made to travel and tourism as extraordinary during his appearance at the recent Skift Global Forum East in Dubai, adding he views Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as markets for significant growth.

Nassetta, who spoke at the Forum via hologram, touched on his optimism about the travel industry's recovery, Hilton's focus on small and medium-sized businesses and why the company hasn't made any mergers and acquisitions.

Watch the full video of Nassetta's interview with Skift founder and CEO Rafat Ali as well as read the transcript below.

Rafat Ali: All right, folks. This is the session we've been waiting for. Thank you for staying. When we first started thinking about this, the screen is a very complex affair. This obviously looks very simple. I want to thank Art Media Inc, that's the company behind this tech that you're about to see and they've just done an incredible job. This is days and days and days and weeks of planning for this particular session to happen as well. So, let's bring up Chris Nassetta. Let's move in.

All right, Chris, thank you for being here. This is certainly a very novel experience for you. It's also a very novel experience for us as well. This is our first ever conference that we're bringing a speaker in as a hologram. Are you enjoying the experience so far, Chris?

Christopher Nassetta: I am. Thanks for having me. When you asked me to do this and do it by hologram, I couldn't help but say yes because I've done lots of public speaking all over the world, obviously mostly live these days through Covid. Certainly some virtual, but I've never done a hologram, so I don't know how it looks.

Ali: It looks great.

Nassetta: I'm really enjoying this first experience. And it was great to see you in the region. I'm sorry, I'm not there now. But as you know, I was there a couple of weeks ago and the region so was difficult to get back. So, everybody in the audience, I'm sorry. I'm not there live and we're subjecting you to this technology. Hopefully, it's working well over five. It's great, great to see you and Riyadh for the World Travel and Tourism Global Summi