The owners of Quinta da Auga enjoy their work... and it shows.
There was a series called Hotel in which the director appeared, james brolin and the deputy director, Connie Selleca . I didn't understand why he had to be the boss and she the second in the hotel world. I only saw one chapter, because at home we were hardly allowed to watch television, but that chapter marked me a lot ”.
Who remembers this story? Patricia Fernández Director of the URSO hotel & SPA in Madrid . She is one of the many? few? women who run hotels in Spain.
The manager is the highest position in the hierarchy of a hotel. Wow, we have written director : it will have been inertia. inertia and history.
Patricia Fernández, Director of URSO Hotel & Spa
Until a few decades ago, the presence of women at the top of the hotel pyramid was residual. Little by little, as in other fields, they have occupied that position. Today, It is more common to find hotel managers than in other managerial positions in other sectors.
Carla Cudós, Head of Communications at NH throws a number: In Spain there are 48.5% of women in managerial positions in hotels . Another relevant fact: a few months ago she was named Maram Kokandi director of the future Park Inn by Radisson in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia . A woman in front of a hotel in Saudi Arabia. Let's think about all this for a moment.
NH have a good number of women managing hotels. “They are very special people”, Cudós tells us, “they don't start out as directors but go up the steps and go through all kinds of positions. It is a very beautiful profession ”. Some examples are those of Belen Diaz Prada (NH Collection Paseo del Prado) and Conchita Bedoya ( NH Collection Abascal ), Leticia Muro ( NH Príncipe de Vergara ), Hortensia Santolaya ( NH Núñez de Balboa ), Mónica Torres ( NH Collection Palacio de Tepa )… And there is more.
If there is a hotel group that is particularly committed (and was a pioneer) in the equality policy is AccorHotels . Has created WAAG , the first network of women in the hotel sector , an international project whose objective is accompany the women , both in the support functions and in the hotels, in their personal and professional development.
In addition, in 2015 it signed the principles for the empowerment of women, WEP's ( Women´s Empowerment Principles ). This program is an initiative of UN Women and the United Nations Global Compact and defines seven axes that promote a relevant role for women in the company, in the labor market and in society.
One of the representative facades of Barceló
AccorHotels has 34.69% women directors ; some are from two hotels: Arantxa Fernandez is Director of Pullman and Novotel Campo de las Naciones and Ana Chivite She is the Director of Mercure Madrid Lope de Vega and ibis Styles Madrid Prado. In addition, she is the only hotelier who is part of the movement HeforShe. At Accor, the issue of equality is not played with.
The explanation for the “abundance” (are there larger quotation marks?) of female directors is simple. They are positions to which it is accessed from below, making a career, with studies and work.
This has been the case with Martha Gutierrez , Director of gecko , perhaps the most famous hotel in Formentera . She started as a receptionist and has already four seasons at the hotel as General Manager.
A similar path has been followed by the director of Valdepalacios Relais&Chateaux , Mari Carmen Fernandez . She comes from the Hotel Carlton, in Madrid, where she started at the age of 19, going through the positions of telephone operator, assistant concierge, concierge, salesperson... until she arrived at Valdepalacios, a hotel that she has run since it opened 12 years ago. This path is often repeated because, Who usually starts from the bottom? Correct answer.
Marta Gutiérrez, Director of Gecko
There is also another way the family business supported with the corresponding training and many hours of reception . It is the case of Oihana Subijana director of coven ; she has become a director in a natural way: hers is a family business. "I have lived the project since its inception and they proposed to me to manage it, for being the one who knows the house best," she tells Condé Nast Traveler.
And she acknowledges that her life "has completely changed" since she added the hotel to her father's restaurant, Peter Subijana . Akelarre, belongs to Marugal group , that he has women in charge of his hotels . Each one of them has arrived in a different way to the position.
The director of the Urso, also Marugal, who was marked by Connie Sellecca, soon had it clear. She tells us: “when I was already working in the hospitality industry, I was questioning why she couldn't be the director of an urban hotel, and in addition to five stars, if she had all the training and detail that is required ”. She got it. Today she runs one of the best hotels in Madrid. Around her there are 67% women managers . It's not a bad number.
coven
Another hotel manager in the group is María Abad, in charge of Torralbenc, in Menorca . She combined having grown up in her parents' farmhouse with specific studies. “One day I found out that the first luxury accommodation on the island was going to open and it seemed to me that it was a great project in which to demonstrate that true luxury is to transmit the essence of my island through care, careful details and authenticity ”. And she there she is, getting up "every morning wanting to learn things."
Working from below or the family business: those are, in short, the two paths to become a director because, here comes the headline, in this business the signing of women at the top is not common. That is, it is difficult for a Gerente general jump to another hotel as General Manager.
The path is usually vertical, and from bottom to top and not horizontally. This does happen with men much more frequently. We end this review with what would be an archetypal case. It is that of Ana Faustino, director of Sâo Lourenço de Barrocal , also a very unusual place.
Faustino was signed by José Antonio Uva, the owner of this exquisite project when she worked at the Lisbon Four Seasons , where she was not a director. “I started at the Ritz Four Seasons Hotel as a Receptionist, then I moved on to Head of the Floor Managers Department, Assistant to the Executive Director of Housekeeping and ended up as Manager on Duty”, she tells us from this Portuguese paradise. There, both work hand in hand. Uva, who knows something about hotels, is clear about it: “she is the best director I have ever met. Hospitality is his natural state.”
Anna Faustino
Hotel owners are another chapter apart . They are one step above the directors. Or better, on a different step . Both are positions of power.
If we talk about women with power in the world of hotels, we have to talk about the owners, what in hotel jargon it is reverently called “the property” . In Spain the name of the Soldevila sisters , owners of the ** Majestic group .**
Another recognizable name are those of María Luisa García Gil and her daughter, Luisa Lorenzo, known as the Luisas ; they are the factotum of ** Quinta de Auga ,** the only Relais&Chateau in Galicia. His involvement in the hotel is total. His latest initiative is to join the global initiative Earth Hour ; After last summer's fires in the mountains of Galicia, they have decided to do their bit to reforest the area and plant some native and mycorrhizal chestnut trees on a farm near the hotel. Terra hyphae , a research center based in Pontevedra specialized in applied mycology. In 2017 they achieved the 'Women of the Year' award from the Relais & Châteaux association.
To Quinta da Auga, Santiago de Compostela
Behind each owner there is a very personal project. bianca sharma , an American businesswoman discovered in 1999 a abandoned monastery on a cliff of the Amalfi coast. She fell in love and decided to build a fabulous hotel.
There she began a long process that involved resurrecting the building, rebuilding it with local architects and artisans to maintain its historic integrity, and turning it into a hotel. The Monastery of Santa Rosa It opened in 2012 and the Sharma family is still at the helm.
Santa Rosa Monastery, the dream of Bianca Sharma
Dina by Luca Chartouni she is another example of a woman driven by a passion (and by a business project). She is co-owner of The Lowell in New York and responsible for its renewal. She comes from the audiovisual world and hers is the seal on the aesthetics of this hotel, one of the best kept secrets in the city. She claims that she has not found “special challenges for being a woman” and she gets excited talking about a job that “is like a play in which everyone has a role”.
Worldwide there are very powerful women in the world of hospitality. Sonia Cheung's name always comes up in this conversation; she is the CEO of the Rosewood Hotel Group. Another is that of Lisa Holladay , world vice president of Ritz-Carlton, St. Regis Hotels & Resorts, Ritz-Carlton Reserve and Bulgari Hotels & Resorts . There are some. There are few.
There are more and more Connies Sellecas who, let's remember, in the end ends up being director . Of course, his boss had to become the hotel owner first.
*99% of the people who have helped prepare this article (communication managers, account managers, owners, agency owners) are women.